


Betrayer

by chipperdyke



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, This Was Supposed To Be a Slow Burn But They Had Other Ideas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-02-12 17:30:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 71,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21480169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chipperdyke/pseuds/chipperdyke
Summary: Bellatrix attempts to navigate a world in which she is lauded as a hero for striking the killing blow against Voldemort, but equally reviled by those who can't forget the rest of her history. Events in the Muggle world increasingly necessitate the involvement of wizards, Death Eater trials are ongoing, Bellatrix is unwillingly reunited with parts of her family she'd rather have forgotten, and Bellatrix's newly discovered soul mate can't quite decide whether she is glad to have been found.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Bellatrix Black Lestrange
Comments: 211
Kudos: 841





	1. Act I: The Court of Fools

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Act II begins on Chapter 15. I am wrapping this story up now, although I am open to the possibility of an Act III if the readers will have me.
> 
> Is my Bellatrix light? Dark? Gray? Insane? And how crazy is she, really? Every reader seems to have a different opinion on these subjects. I remain undecided. One thing I can guarantee: Hermione will not be corrupted.
> 
> Trigger warnings: 
> 
> There is referenced non-con. It happened prior to the story and is not the main pairing. 
> 
> There is some g!p but it's not very detailed or graphic, and again is mainly referential.

Bellatrix Black, duelmaster, murderer, servant of the Dark Lord, wept loudly and clung to her soulmate as the St. Mungo's staff blanketed healing wards over her.

The burns and flesh wounds were long-healed. It had been years and years - had it been months? - no, surely at least a decade since she'd been placed here. Even St. Mungo's had a high-security cell, for those awaiting trial or those who could not be convicted. 

It was worse than Azkaban. Sometimes, the Muddy would stare deeply into Bella's eyes and their matching teardrop marks would throb in time and Bella would scream. Then the Muddy would leave her, but never quite long enough. 

_ You love me, _ Bella would taunt, and Muddy would shake her head even as she wrapped her up tightly in her arms. 

"Do you love me?" Muddy asked Bella, and mostly Bella said _ yes. _"But you don't know me," Muddy said, lips pursed cutely, and Bella traced her lip with one finger, looking closely, wondering why her own finger looked so strange. She was heavy with the possibility of one day kissing her.

Bella had never bought into the idea like her sisters had. They'd searched their bodies for every imperfection, lining up facing each other and giggling at the thought that they'd have a mirror-image scar and somehow be matched together. Bella kept herself apart from that, although her sisters could not miss the very distinctive mark on her left shoulder, etched into her skin. 

By the time she was twenty-seven, she was in Azkaban. There was no hope of finding her soul mate then, and she'd mourned that as well as she could. Every good feeling and happy moment was stripped from her, and so she fixated on the loss of that person, which was not a good feeling but not a bad one, either. She wondered if her soul mate was dead, or if she didn't exist at all. If her soul mate knew who she was, would she have tried to break her out of Azkaban? If she had a soul mate at all, that person would never be whole. Perhaps she would find an unmarked witch to spend her days with, although it was hard to imagine an unmarked witch willing to hazard the chance that the missing soulmate would be found unexpectedly. Some marked people were able to play off their mark as something else, but Bella's soul mark was far too distinctive to miss. Was it better to be marked and always searching, or unmarked and free? She asked Muddy that, and Muddy just looked at her with wide, frightened eyes and did not answer. 

The Dark Lord was gone, and Bella cried for him. Her heart was shattered, destroyed, and it was all that Potter boy's fault. 

Was it Bella's fault? 

She dealt the killing blow, while Potter was on the ground and the Dark Lord was - he said he would kill Narcissa, that was it - and nobody could have ever predicted the killing curse from behind, no hesitation, even as the world turned on its axis and evil destroyed evil.

What was left? What was left of _ her, _ when evil was exterminated? Was it the doctors that did it? Was it Muddy? Muddy told her they were trying to heal her mind, which made her laugh for three days. Muddy should know that the mind could not be healed by magic. 

That moment of finding. Bella had wondered what it would feel like, to have her mark recognize its other half. She hadn't quite imagined the pain of it, not when she had been so set in her mission, not when the finding happened so unexpectedly and meant _ this _ . "Was it for me?" Muddy asked her, and Bella told her _ Never, you mean nothing. _ It was for her sister, who dared to lie to the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord knew when his servants lied to him. But he never thought it would be Bella who betrayed him, because after all that, Lucius knew and did not tell her secret. 

How could he not, when Bella doubled over and retched dark wine on that first _ Crucio _ at the Malfoy Manor? He'd taken over, and Bella had stood in the corner of the room and watched the Muddy cry. It did not hurt Bella, as long as it was not her curse that did the work. Lucius told Bella that she'd be hers once she broke. _ I don't want it, _ Bella told Lucius, and they threw Muddy back in the cell and Bella did not see her again until Mungo's. 

Muddy was young. She had not yet been born, while Bella had worn that mark for decades and tried to forget that it existed. 

_ My Muddy, _ Bella crooned, and stroked the soft skin of her neck. "Call me Hermione," Muddy told her, and Bella cackled, and Muddy left her again. 

Muddy came with food, before the doctors came with their torture. She asked Bella what she would eat, and Bella told her _ Your heart, I'll eat your heart. _And Muddy left her alone for the torture.

"Is it working?" Muddy asked the doctors, and there were dire murmurings and sad sighs. "Where will you keep her?" 

_ Too dangerous to let live, _ Bella called to them. _ Give me my Muddy back, so I can eat her. _

Muddy held her closely and felt the ridges of her rib cage. "Eat, Bella," she begged. "They will release you if you could stand up."

_ Prison, prison, that's all the Muddy has, _ Bella crooned to her, and slept the heavy sleep of exhaustion. 

She fought the Death Eaters, during the last battle. Bella had always wanted to kill them all, and she was happy to do so, with her sister behind her and Lucius protecting his son. "Run!" they'd shouted, but Bella had nothing left of her but the fight. She did not run. 

_ Muddy wishes I would die, _Bella said, and Muddy cried and held her tightly, their marks so close together that Bella could almost feel the light that bound them. Muddy was here to heal her, but Bella did not want to release the madness, when it was all she had left. 

The doctors gave up on their cures, and Bella ate pineapple slices out of Muddy's hands. _ You are the most delicious, _ Bella sang, and Muddy kissed her forehead and fed her grapes. 

Her sisters visited her. She could not speak to them. Once, Andy brought her a tiny baby, and Bella looked with wonder at the thing. 

They told her that she was to be free. _ Free, free, there is no freedom left for me, _ Bella sang. 

Muddy asked her, didn't she want to leave with her? _ I'll never be yours. I am his forever. _

"You killed the Dark Lord," Muddy reminded her patiently. 

_ Muddy is free. Now you know who bears your mark. You will never have me, but you are free to find another. _

Muddy's eyes were depthless and sad. 

_ You are brainwashed by the myth, _ Bella admonished her. _ Of all people, you should know that the mark lies. _

"Maybe it does, but I don't want to leave you here."

_ It is only the chance at love. Freak magic that never meant anything. I will never love you. I am his forever. _

Muddy left. Bella wished she had stayed, but she was there when Bella walked out the doors to help track down the last of the Death Eaters. Betrayer? Hardly. There was nothing left to betray. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think! Interested in another chapter?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm hooked...

Muddy was beautiful, Bellatrix thought as she shot a curse at the Death Eater holding Muddy as a shield before him. 

It was an unfortunate consequence of having a soul mate, that you could become distracted by their face even when you were in combat. Then, since Azkaban Bella had been easily distractible, so maybe it wasn't so strange. 

The forest was dark, even at midday, dank and moist and dreary. The Death Eater hideout was an abrupt drop-out at the base of a massive tree - they'd flushed the hideout with smoke, and everything had gone to shit quickly. 

The Death Eater's companion finished off the last of their Auror escorts, a lot of good they'd done, and Bella put up a shield without thinking. The companion's curse bounced off the shield after an interminable pause, and then the man who had been holding Muddy fell lifelessly to the ground and Muddy disarmed the companion. The force of the spell actually sent the man flying into a nearby tree, and he sat stunned at its base.

Idiot. Bella cackled. _ "Avada Ked -" _

_ "Protego!" _Muddy screamed hoarsely, directing the shield cleverly so that it deflected the Killing Curse. Bella looked at Muddy with interest, ignoring their adversary who'd begun crawling away as if they couldn't clearly see him. 

"How did you -"

Muddy ignored her. _ "Petrificus Totalus," _she cast, and the man dropped down.

Muddy shot Bella an unreadable look and went to the Auror who'd most recently dropped, feeling for a pulse. Finding none, she checked the next body. 

"He's still alive," Muddy said beneath her breath, and Bella cocked her head. 

"That's Trigor," Bella told her, realizing only afterward that Muddy was not asking for the man's name. 

"Yeah? Can you heal him?"

"Nasty knock to the head," Bella said. She found her foot tapping impatiently, and tried to still it. "Scrambled his brains, I'd say." She grinned, and Muddy frowned. 

Bella tapped the wand she'd stolen against her hand, and then she looked down to it and flipped it around to offer it hilt-first to Muddy. 

Muddy looked at the wand in confusion, and then looked up at Bella. "Can you heal him?" she asked again.

Bella scrunched up her nose. "I haven't healed anyone since school. Although Prof said I was naturally gifted." She snorted. "Goes to show. Trigor's a Death Eater," she added, in case Muddy hadn't figured that out.

Muddy rolled her eyes and checked each of the bodies. She breathed deeply, standing up, and tried an incantation under her breath. Nothing but a few sparks flew out of the tip of her wand.

"Come on," Muddy muttered, and she paced away from Bella and spoke the spell louder. 

Muggle jeans looked good on Mudblood asses. Bella slipped the wand into her sleeve and watched with interest. Muddy turned in frustration to Bella, and Bella could see the hint of a tear in her eye.

"Do you think they knew me?" Bella asked Muddy, and Muddy shook her head, pressing her lips together. "Am I really that different?" Bella took inventory of herself. Tan robe, red trimmings, hair in order, teeth accidentally restored at Mungo's. Fingernails clean. She shifted subjects rapidly. "Have you ever been able to summon a Patronus? You are acting like you can, and yet you clearly_ can't." _

"I think you could be helpful, but you're enjoying being supremely unhelpful."

Bella tapped her lip. "I see your problem. You can't sidealong more than one of them. The better move would be to sidealong me, since I have a wand and I'm probably the Ministry's most wanted still, but you're worried they'll wake up in the meantime. You've got no companions and you can't send a messenger for help because you can't cast the spell."

Bella stalked toward her, circling her from behind. "You're scared, so you act frustrated. And yet you didn't disarm me, which I suspect you are regretting now." Muddy jumped as Bella poked the small of her back with her finger. "You're stuck, and you need to decide - do you trust me?"

"Give me your wand," Muddy said, eyes narrowing dangerously as Bella finished circling around her, stepping close. 

"Pretty, pretty Muddy," Bella hissed. "It is nice to see some fire."

She loosened the wand in her sleeve and slid it out, pressing it into Muddy's hand. Muddy jumped again when their fingers contacted, and Bella felt it through their fingers. Warmth, hope, bone-deep satisfaction, a heady concoction that felt like it belonged to someone else. Bella sighed and released the wand in Muddy's hand, breathing deeply, looking around them at the forest. 

"You like being outside," Muddy observed quietly. "You fought well, Bella."

Bella scowled in sudden fury. "Like I need praise from a filthy -"

"Shut it," Muddy said sharply. "I just mean I'm glad you're well enough to stand on your own, now."

Bella's anger dissipated as quickly as it came, followed by dread. Muddy wouldn't come back to visit her if she was healthy. She had begun eating solid food, even with Muddy gone an entire week. Bella thought maybe she shouldn't, so that Muddy would come back and hold her as she had in the depths of Bella's sickness.

Muddy was studying her with something in her eye. "What are you thinking?" Muddy asked, and Bella turned swiftly away from her. 

Muddy called after her, "I think that the treatments they were giving you messed with you more than the doctors thought."

"Fuckers," Bella muttered. She felt in her pocket. The other wand she'd nicked in the middle of the fight was still there. She could Disapparate now, disappear. If she tried to get into her cell at Mungo's with it, odds were they'd find it. She had no possessions there. Azkaban had been grimy and cold. Mungo's was sterile and white and cold, too, and in Mungo's Bella was utterly, completely alone. 

Except for her. Bella turned back to find Muddy's eyes on her. She felt so far away, although it was only a few steps. 

If Bella Disapparated away now, she wouldn't ever hold Muddy again, unless she somehow was able to capture Muddy and hold her captive. Muddy would look at her with such sad eyes, though. Even the contemplation of it hurt Bella deep in her chest.

No. Muddy would walk free, and Bella would put her hands back into the shackles and wait like a dog for Muddy to visit. Yes, that was what she would do. She wanted Muddy to hold her like she had last week again, and if Bella stole her and kept her she could have much from her body, but not that. 

"Take me back to that place," Bella growled, and advanced on Muddy. Something like fear crossed Muddy's face, and then Bella held out her hand expectantly and Muddy looked so relieved that Bella grinned at her without thinking. 

"Mungo's, you mean," Muddy laughed.

"Mungo's," Bella repeated vaguely, captured by her eyes. She wanted to step in and put her face in Muddy's hair, but it was harder than it was before their fight. While Bella was sick, Muddy stayed close, and Bella learned that being held was life-sustaining and precious. Now - now, perhaps Bella had to earn it, to be close like that again. It was frustrating to be denied something she wanted so badly, but Bella thought she could be patient for this.

  
  


Safely back in her cell, Bella stashed the wand in the mattress toward the middle and the bottom. It wouldn't be a problem to _ Accio _ it back wandless, and maybe they wouldn't spot it. She took a pad of paper and a Muggle pen - they clearly had relaxed the rules, before there had been nothing sharp at all - and wrote a short list of books from memory. Some for studying, some for leisure.

There were no windows, or enchanted viewports, just the big glass door that led to a long white corridor, dead-ending at Bella's cell. She could watch the nurses and occasional visitors, and they could watch her, too. Bella sat in the chair for a long time, remembering how narrow Muddy's waist was, how soft her lips were when she kissed her skin. She looked in the small, shatterproof mirror, saw her own wrinkles which age and madness wrought. She wished for mascara and lipstick, suddenly embarrassed that Muddy had seen her looking like this. Muddy wore no makeup, but she was seventeen or maybe eighteen and did not need it. 

_ Daily Prophet, _ she added at the top of the list, and then she ripped the top page off the notepad and stuck the paper against the glass door. Hopefully someone would notice it soon.

The next page, she started with, _ Dear Muddy. _ Two sentences in, she realized she would have to burn the paper. The next sentence found licks of fire at the edge of the paper, and Bella watched with interest as the paper curled, piece by piece, away from the pad and turned to ash. 

The fire alarm went off, and techs rushed in to find Bella sitting with disinterest beside a small conflagration. The fire was doused quickly, and they drew the curtain and changed her into the white hospital gown. She went passively along with it, and when she was in bed, habit took over and she fell deeply into moroseness and lassitude. No longer could she summon the image of Muddy's face, glaring at her, smiling at her, looking at her with that unreadable look. Muddy was gone, and Bella was left only with the words she'd put on the page to echo in her mind.

  
  


The next day, the _ Prophet _ was there when she woke up. She paged through it without interest. She had not read since Azkaban, except for the odd spellbook, and her attention drifted quickly. She paced the room briskly, and a nurse caught her in the act and offered to escort her outside. Bella nodded, wondering whether they would give her real clothes again.

They did, but "outside" wasn't Diagon Alley, as she'd expected. Instead, it was a sidealong to a strange, neglected garden beside an equally abandoned old mansion. Bella wondered, but did not ask, about the history of the place.

It was good to be outdoors, but not as nice as it had been with Muddy. She missed combat. She missed having a wand. Most of all, she missed the young witch. Her heart beat with it. Her soul mate's face was indistinct in her memory, but the feeling of her closeness, the lack of it, was overwhelming. 

She sighed impatiently, grateful that the nurse was not talkative, but dissatisfied with her company. She was bored. She walked more quickly.

When they were back at Mungo's, Bella went straight to the desk and wrote at the top of a new pad of paper, "Hermione Granger." She added "Ms.", turned it over, and wrote, "Bellatrix Black requests your presence." Then she folded the paper twice, and unfurled it once again to add, "At your convenience."

She stuck it to the door and then sat at the desk, spinning the pen in her hand as if it was her own wand. 

Muddy. What was there to know about her? She was friends with Potter. They had left school before their last year. Was Muddy back at school? Truly, how long had she been in that haze? She flipped over the _ Prophet. _ It was dated September 24, 1998. School would have just begun a few weeks ago. 

Bella's heart burst with impatience. To see Muddy. To be free. She was at war with herself, perpetually dissatisfied. She wished she'd talked to Muddy more, when she had her. Small talk, not about their marks or their hearts, but about themselves, the world. How long had Muddy come here, day after day, to hold Bella and kiss her forehead sweetly? If Bella had told her earlier that she was foolish to hope for love with Bella, would she have stopped coming before now? If she'd stopped midway through the doctors' stupid treatment, would Bella have recovered, or would she have continued to refuse food and starve? 

Muddy had been clear-headed, while Bella was in a daze, and she had never said she loved Bella. She'd as much as admitted that she thought the mark was wrong. The only hint at emotion from Muddy was her eyes. That, and how could she cling to her unless touch did something for her? Maybe not what it did to Bella, who had not been touched by anyone since Azkaban, and during Azkaban had mostly touched others without permission - such different touches this Muddy had, such softness, addictive and soothing and firm. 

The note was gone from the door. Bella sighed and looked at the clock. 6pm. Would Muddy come after dinner? Would the owl deliver her message during dinner? Was she at Hogwarts with her friends? Bella imagined it, imagined Muddy happily talking with them, having forgotten Bella completely, while Bella sat at this desk for days and thought futilely about her. 

She couldn't have more information about Muddy, but perhaps she could get more details on the state of the world if she read the _ Prophet. _ She tried again, flipping through the pages, and then she stopped cold at a photo of Muddy with the Weasel boy. They looked quickly at the camera, and Muddy grabbed the boy's hand and towed him around the corner of a building and out of sight. Moments later, the scene repeated itself.

Bella watched Muddy's face. She wasn't angry, but she wasn't happy, either. Irritated with the camera? She was beautiful. How could a Mudblood look like that? Bella's heart hammered in her chest, and she sunk down in the chair and absorbed Muddy's every expression.

Lovesick. She was sick with love. She was utterly useless. She wanted only one thing. A part of her wondered what she'd do, out in the world, on the run. She wouldn't start a new cult. She'd wanted power, but not prestige or followers. She wanted - she'd wanted only to kill, but looking back on the events yesterday, she'd killed two people and it was only momentarily thrilling. They had been poor combatants. Bella enjoyed a duel, a challenge, not a slaughter. How would she have that, on the run? Maybe she could do something useful. She'd never be an Auror, but she could be a treasure hunter, or a bounty hunter. 

She looked at the headline on the paper, finally. "Snogging Weasley After Failed Soulmate Scandal? By Rita Skeeter."

Bella stood abruptly and went to the mattress, retrieving the stolen wand. A treasure hunter it was. There were untamed wildernesses all over the world. She'd need some maps. The waystation in Barcelos, in the Amazon. Delightful. She'd be on her way - 

Shortly. She ripped out the picture from the newspaper, trimming the headline, and then she ripped the picture, hating the young man's face. The spirits of the picture fled, never to return, and Bella dropped the papers in disgust. 

Bella put the wand in her pocket and sat abruptly down. She was torn. She'd just asked Muddy to visit, after holding out for so long. It could be the last chance she had to see Muddy. 

She'd have to be careful. The headline was bollocks, probably, anyway. No point in bringing it up. She should remember that this girl was Draco's age, and not pine and whine and fight for what was hers. 

Hers. She was Bella's! Muddy had never said it, but she hadn't denied it. Bella closed her fist and her heart hammered. She imagined closing the curtain to her room and pushing Muddy down on the bed. She imagined how it would be to have her roughly. Would it be Muddy's first time? Would Muddy enjoy it? Would she hold Bella afterward? And if she did, how would that feel, and would it be different from her tight hugs during Bella's sickness? Could anything in the world feel closer than those touches? 

Bella had not wanted sex for anything but power before. She realized somewhere in the back of her mind that Muddy was young, and that not all soul mates had that kind of love. Muddy had only kissed her forehead. How stupid of Bella, to think that there was an attraction there. Muddy cared for Bella because she pitied her, and was curious about what might have been. That was all. 

Bella gripped the wand in the robe pocket and waited, watching the door. The clock turned to eight, and she thought the message hadn't been delivered promptly.

She could not stand one more night in this cage. She had slept enough for a year already. She stood and began pacing, having given up on Muddy but unwilling to quite leave, yet, when there was the chance to see her one last time. 

The door slid open, and Bellatrix turned quickly, dropping into a defensive crouch. 

"Bella," Muddy breathed.

Bella straightened, head pounding. "You came."

"Of course I came. The letter was waiting at my dorm window."

"You're back at Hogwarts?" Bella asked. They were still standing, motionless, as if in the moment of seeing each other they were held in place.

"I have to finish my seventh year," Muddy said. 

Bella dropped in to the chair by the desk, making a sweeping gesture to the bed. "The accommodations here are sadly lacking, but would you sit?"

"I thought - maybe there was something wrong," Muddy said softly, sitting at the edge of the bed. "Skipped out on a late night study session."

"On what?" 

Muddy looked at her blankly. "What? Oh, um, conjuring. McGonagall told us that the test tomorrow will be turning conjured water into ice."

Bella waved her hand. "Child's play."

Hermione - Muddy - pulled out her wand and conjured a thin stream of water, which puddled on the ground before she flicked the water up into an arc and then froze it. 

Bella was slightly impressed, but leaned forward, hand open for the wand. "Give it here, I'll -"

Muddy looked briefly suspicious, but she did give Bella her wand. Bella shot a wide, thick spike of ice into the bed frame, which shattered the wood. Some of the wood embedded into Muddy's hand, making her bleed, and Bella pulled the wood out and repaired the bed in a flurry of silent repentance.

After that, she handed over the wand and put her thumb over the largest of the gashes, leaning into Muddy, smelling her, dizzy and transfixed. _ The last time I'll see you, my pet, _ she thought, and Muddy looked at her with wide eyes and put their cheeks against each other. 

Bella sighed out in a huff and pulled her body closer, and Muddy was still and silent and didn't pull away. Time stopped. Bella forgot about the Weasel and treasure hunting in the Amazon, forgot the Dark Lord and the pleasure of murder and the fantasy of rough sex. _ This _ was it. This was _ it _. 

"Visit again," Bella begged, despite herself. 

Muddy wrapped her arms gently around Bella's back, and Bella fell silent again. 

"This isn't good for me," Muddy said, voice muffled by Bella's hair. 

Bella sighed sharply and pulled away to look at her face. She was crying, and Bella wiped the tears with one hand, mind racing.

"I haven't hurt you," she said finally. "Have I? I didn't know." 

"You said some awful things, last week."

"All lies," Bella said to her now, and Muddy looked up at her with glistening eyes. Bella cupped her cheek, and then slid her hand along her neck, captured utterly by the momentum of the moment and the heady scent of her, the softness of skin, their closeness, leaning in.

Muddy turned her cheek away, and Bella released her and staggered as if she'd been slapped. She coughed, or sobbed, and then she sat back down at the desk and waited for Muddy to speak. 

Muddy paced. "It's not what you do, Bella, not really. It's who you are." She seemed to struggle for more words, and then she shut her mouth and dropped back to sit on the edge of the bed. 

Bella watched her silently, and finally Muddy burst out, "I'm glad to see you better. You haven't said what you plan to do, now. Will you wait for your trial? A wand is missing, you know." She scoffed. "I'm sure you know that. From the fight yesterday."

"I didn't know there would be a trial," Bella told her.

"Why did you cooperate and show us that hideout?" Muddy's eyes were red-rimmed. Bella saw exhaustion in them. "I can imagine you as a different person, when we are together. But when I leave I remember who you really are, and I think you are playing some kind of game with us."

"I killed the only thing I've ever truly cared about," Bella said to her.

"I _ know! _Don't you think I think about that, too?"

"So who is it that I am? Who do you think I am?"

"Why are you asking _ me?" _ Muddy stood and went for the door, and Bella let her go.

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

They were wrapped up together, Muddy crying out, Bella inside her. Muddy gripped Bella’s shoulders tightly, and Bella drove deeper, feral, delighting in her sounds. Muddy laid on a bench, Bella held the bench on either side of Muddy’s head, and Muddy wrapped her legs around Bella’s hips and shrieked. Bella kept her pace hard and fast, and Muddy screamed again and Bella saw that the Dark Lord was there, looming over them both. Muddy’s body shook, and Bella could finally see what she’d been blind to - that Muddy screamed in pain and not pleasure, and they were both puppets dancing to the Lord’s song. 

Bella jumped partially out of the bed before she had time to fully wake up, and when she did she slipped down to sitting. The bed was low, so that her knees had to extend outward or bend uncomfortably when she sat on its edge, but she put her elbows on her knees and covered her face. She was sweating, her skin clammy and cold. 

A nightmare. Bella had always - had always _ chosen _to serve. She was the first servant the Dark Lord brought back into his service, after his resurrection. She’d first joined him because it was her destiny, and she’d happily rejoined the cause, chasing after the Potters and plotting against the Ministry, mostly killing things that needed killing. The dream meant nothing. The Dark Lord was not beneficent, but Bellatrix had always been devoted, and he had never treated her badly. 

The Dark Lord hurting Muddy - that was not strange. What was strange was that Bella did not want Muddy to be hurt. When it was Lucius torturing Muddy, Bella was not conflicted. She did not want to save Muddy, not then. What could have changed in the meantime, to make that dream a nightmare? It should have been erotic, and not horrifying. Yet Bella did not want the Dark Lord looming over her Muddy, and she did not want Muddy to scream like that. 

She looked at the clock. Since Azkaban, she slept badly and late every morning, but it was 6:45 in the morning. The day of her release. It must have been that - the anticipation of the change, awaited, long-overdue - that provoked the nightmare, and nothing more. 

She dressed and sat motionless at the desk, waiting for the staff to come to escort her through the door and out of Mungo’s, hopefully forever. 

When the hospital doors opened, the sunlight blinded Bella momentarily, and she put her hand up to block it. It was only then that she noticed the throng of people clustered around the entrance - people who suddenly rushed forward at her, clamoring to be heard.

_ How do you feel, to have a Mudblood soul mate? - Why did you do it? Why did you kill You Know Who? _

Bella shied away from the press, and then someone grabbed her arm and she nearly drew the wand out of her pocket. “Bella, Bella, it’s me,” Andromeda said, and Bella looked up and saw that it was, indeed, her sister.

She was to go with her to the half-blood Tonk’s tiny cottage. Bella put her other hand on Andy’s, and nodded to her, and they spun away together. 

Rather than the sunny Irish hills, though, when they reappeared they were in a dank corner of central London. Buildings loomed threateningly over them. Here, the sunlight was dampened by a perpetual gloom. 

Bella looked down the street, and then she knew it. Grimmauld Place, the seat of the Blacks. Andy towed Bella up to the entrance, and they slipped through the door. 

The place smelled musty and old. The carpets were visibly molded, tattered on their edges. Bella paused at the entrance, breathing deeply in the gloom. It was strange, to be here. She had visited often as a child. Now - now that Sirius was gone, Bella was the last Black, and perhaps it was now hers. 

She looked at Andy, and Andy looked back at her, and then a baby’s cry rang out sharply through the empty hallways.

“My cottage is too small for four,” Andy explained, and Bella stared at her. “Come on, then, up the stairs.” Bella took a deep breath and followed her. The baby had quieted, and Bella could tell that the sound was coming from the ground floor.

The next floor was even more neglected, but when Andy opened a door to Bella, the room she showed Bella was clean. The window was open to the alleyway, and the fresh air and light seemed to beat back the mustiness. Each surface was clean. There was a desk, and a bookshelf with one empty shelf, and a large armoire that showed age but had been recently sanded and refinished. And a narrow bed that had a dip in the mattress, well-worn.

“Nymphadora,” Bella whispered, and Andy gave her a long look.

“We will tell you everything at dinner,” her sister promised. Examining her, Bella concluded that if the years had been hard on her own face, they had been harder on her sister’s. Andy looked old, or maybe it was that Bella had not seen her sister’s face since she was twenty-five and her sister, twenty-three, and the span of decades was too long to bridge without some manner of consequence. 

“Why did you agree to take me?” Bella asked her quietly. “Why not the Malfoys?”

Andy looked momentarily surprised. “Well, you are more talkative now. You’re under house arrest, as are the Malfoys. It wouldn’t be appropriate.”

“They trust you with me?”

Andy scoffed, rubbing her neck. “As much as they might reasonably trust you with anyone.” Her frown cleared, and she looked at Bella with seriousness. “Yes.”

Andy left her there, and Bella lay out straight on the tiny mattress. Her heels went over the edge. Whose room had this been? It had the air of a room well lived-in, well-loved. 

She liked the door closed. She liked the tall shelves with the books. The armoire was empty, except for a thin nightdress, and she looked down with disgust at the clothing Mungo’s had provided her. Or - perhaps it was Andy who gave them clothing for her. She had few possessions, even three years out of Azkaban. She’d needed little, and wore the same clothing every day, and bathed infrequently. What was magic for, if not to forgo such formalities? Bella thought, for the first time in a long time, that perhaps she would like to take a bath. 

She took the wand out of her pocket and spun it in her hand. It wasn’t a wand she’d won, and she missed her own terribly. But - it was a wand, and spun nicely, and Bella played with it idly before she cast the cleaning spell on herself. 

She peered out the window, sticking her head and torso fully out, breathing the air. Her mind turned to the mob that had harassed her outside Mungo’s. Obviously, her mark’s other owner was a well-known and dwelt upon subject. Was Bella embarrassed? She contemplated the question briefly, and decided that the answer was a definitive “No.” 

She drifted to the desk, considering writing Muddy. It had only been a few days. If the press knew about her release date, surely Muddy did. Would Muddy drop in? Unlikely. Perhaps they were playing a waiting game with each other, except that Bella played unwillingly. She would happily be the first to beg, if that was the game. 

Maybe Muddy wanted her to answer her own question, but the answering of _ that _ was not an easy thing. Who was Bellatrix Black? How could she answer that question without living this new life a little? 

Perhaps for Muddy, the four months since the Dark Lord’s defeat had felt like a lifetime, but for Bella they had passed in the blink of an eye. The older you are, the faster time passes, so that the first ten years of your life pass as quickly as the last thirty. And Bella had never thought she would ever live to fifty, but it was looking increasingly likely. 

She could meet Muddy, maybe. She could Floo to Hogsmeade, and Muddy could meet her there. Tonight - even tonight, if Muddy would do it. She went eagerly to the desk and found letter paper and a sharp new quill, finally something civilized, and scratched out the request.

Then she remembered Andy asking her to talk during dinner, and she ripped the letter up. She detected a note of pitiable desperation in the first letter, anyway.

_ Muddy, _

_ I have been released and am in Grimmauld Place with Andromeda and, I think, Nymphadora. If you have time tomorrow, September 29th, which is a Friday I believe, I would meet you in Hogsmeade. Please write with the time and place, if you are so inclined. _

_ Bella _

She did not bother to sign it formally, but folded it and addressed it as she had her first note. There was no seal - no matter. 

Her door was farthest from the stairs to the ground floor, which she liked. She shut her door behind her and locked it with the skeleton key she found. The air was filled with the smell of fried bread. 

She followed the smell to the kitchen, deep in the depths of the ground floor. Andy was cooking over a Muggle-looking stove, and Bella sniffed and stood straight upright.

“Lunch, sister?” Andy asked her.

“You have no elves?” Bella couldn’t restrain her disdain.

“The Potter boy freed them all. Sirius gave the entire inheritance to him, you know.” 

Bella let this sink in. So it wasn’t hers. It made sense, she supposed, that Sirius wouldn’t have left the entire Black fortune to earn interest forever. A shame, but there was nothing to be done at this point, she supposed.

“Anyway, I like cooking,” Andy added. Bella perched on a nearby stool, stomach curling around itself. “I’ll make another, if you want a sandwich.”

“Yes,” Bella said, surveying the kitchen. It was filled with Muggle paraphernalia, the detritus of elves and blood traitors and servants, and it was warm and welcoming as any drawing room Bella had ever seen. “I’d like to send post, but is this place Untraceable? I recall that it was.”

Andy shot her a sharp look, and turned back to the stove busily. Bella waited. 

Finally, Andy said, “I’ll have to post it for you, and open it before I send it. Is that all right?”

Bella looked at the letter in her hand, trying to remember what she’d said in it. Nothing that would embarrass her. She was not embarrassed about Muddy, she reminded herself. “Yes. Will she be able to write back?”

There was another long pause. “Is it like the stories?” Andy asked, head bent to the stove.

Like almost everyone, Andy was unmarked. She’d found love, but Ted Tonks was not here. Where was he? Bella looked at the moldy ceiling, tracing a long tendril of mold along the entire length of it, and decided not to ask.

Andy sighed and turned around. “Do you not want to talk about it?” Bella looked down from the ceiling to meet her eye. 

“I don’t care,” Bella told her. “Yes, I suppose it’s just like the stories, but when I met her it didn’t do anything but hurt like bloody hell. The only good it did is that she came to me, at Mungo’s, and I probably would have died if she hadn’t.” She delivered the information factually, and watched as Andy’s face dropped. Bella added, “I think she was totally brainwashed by the idea of it, but I can’t imagine how. Muddy parents wouldn’t have known to tell her.”

Andy sputtered. _ “Muddy?” _she managed. “Your soulmate is Muggleborn, and you still use that slur? … I shouldn’t have expected you to have changed.”

“Muddy. Of course. That’s her name.” Bella was confused.

“Her name is _ Hermione,” _ Andy said sharply, and then she turned quickly to the stove and flipped the sandwich. The bottom was completely black, and Andy cursed fluently and flipped the entire thing into the garbage. 

Bella grabbed one of the sandwiches on the countertop and took a bite, watching Andy slice more cheese and spread butter on the bread. They were comfortably quiet, until Andy was finished constructing the sandwich and started up on her again. “What is your - what is _ happening _ with you? The Malfoys and Harry Potter say that you killed Voldemort.” Bella flinched away at the naming of Him. “Did you? Why would you do that? Narcissa said it was for her, but I won’t believe it.”

“I suppose that means you plan to hate me _ forever,” _ Bella drawled, and then she took another bite of the sandwich. 

“Damn right! You have done too many unforgivable things. Yet here you are, the stain on the earth that you are, lingering on in a world that has no place for you.”

That stung. “I’ll find a place for me.” Bella left her letter on the counter and walked out of the kitchen, sandwich in hand.

Andy called after her. “The mark makes her pure, like you, Bellatrix. Your soul mate can’t be a Mudblood, because you are paired.” 

Bella didn’t bother to turn around. She shouted, “Or maybe it makes me dirty, like her!” The baby in the next room began howling, and she pounded up the stairs like a petulant child. 

  
  


A letter was waiting outside her door the next morning, and Bella tore it in half in her impatience. Muddy's writing was curly and large. 

_ Sunday morning at 7am at the tea shop, Bella. _

It was unsigned, and Bella's heart skipped in disappointment and then, as quickly, thrill. Muddy would meet her - it was only a few days longer - Bella could wait, she'd wait for this. 

Andy brought her to Diagon Alley, and for ten minutes it was normal. The shops were all unfamiliar, and open for business, but Andy brought her to a fitter and she asked for all black, all leather, and pants for the first time in a long time. She paid with Galleons Andy gave her, a surcharge for quick service, and when they exited the store there was a mob of people waiting outside. 

Andy tried to pull her through, and Bella heard excited murmurings and a few questions. Then, "_ Adava - Adiva Keda -" _a man said, and Bella turned sharply to the voice, finding a wand pointed at her with green lightning sputtering at its tip.

She swatted the wand out of his hand, and Andy sidealonged her away, back to Grimmauld.

"The stupid prick," Andy huffed when they were safely through. 

"Harmless," Bella said, but she was shaken, too. It had been a long time since anyone had the nerve to try to assassinate her. "I suppose you're not the only one who hates me."

Andy sized her up, and Bella drifted to the base of the stairwell, wanting silence and solitude. 

"They want to know you," Andy said to her, and Bella scoffed. 

"There's nothing to know. I am a soldier with no war to fight." Bella turned to face her, and Andy's face was open, sad. 

"There's a story at least every week in the news, you know. About you, or Granger, or both. The soulmate story makes you more human, I think, and your - you turning on Voldemort makes you almost a hero."

"Only a fool would call me that," Bella told her, and escaped up the stairs. 

It was only an hour later that there was a loud clamouring below, and Bella crept to the stairs to catch the words, "Let's go, Hermione." The intonation was male, and the voice familiar.

"At least let me see her." Muddy's voice cracked in her throat, and Bella came down the stairs. They were in the drawing room.

Andy was saying, "It was harmless. I don't know why they contacted you about it at all."

"Hermione has an assigned security detail. It's not the first time -" The Potter boy looked up and saw Bella through the open door, and fell silent. 

Muddy rounded the corner and paused as they made eye contact. 

"You're all right," she breathed. Muddy looked happy, relieved, and she glowed in the uncertain light of the doorway.

"The boy couldn't even say the incantation correctly," Bella told her, but her heart beat happily to have Muddy here, so quickly, as if summoned by magic. 

"People are so stupid," Muddy said, and then she glanced behind her at Potter. "Come in the room, Bella."

Bella did so, sizing Potter up. He was in school robes, looking like an adult in children's clothing. He returned the look silently, and she wondered whether he was afraid. She stood close to Muddy. 

Muddy broke the silence first. "They should assign one to Bella, too."

"Is it the Aurors?" Andy asked them.

"They're not very good," Potter said, looking at Muddy. Muddy had drifted closer to Bella, close enough that she could feel the warmth of her body through her robes. Muddy was in jeans and a thick sweater, disheveled.

"Next time, I will wear a face outside." Bella shrugged. "They are always poor illusions, but it should allow me to walk in public." She leaned into Muddy, and Muddy seemed to sigh. 

"Not a bad idea, but you don't have a wand." Potter seemed to be - not friendly, but not hostile. His eyes flickered between Bella and Muddy. 

"I think Andy can do that much," Bella told him.

Muddy nodded, and then she said, "Can I talk with Bella privately?"

Potter and Andy left the room, closing the door, and Muddy turned to Bella and held her. Bella pressed her lips on the top of Muddy's head, and Muddy turned her face up and kissed her heatedly. 

A kiss - Bella had not been expecting it, and froze, and then Muddy opened her lips and deepened the kiss. Bella tried to respond in kind, but she did not know how to kiss. It was not something that she did with her lovers in Azkaban, and romantic flirtations before that were driven away by her soul mark.

Muddy pulled away, confused.

"Pet," Bella murmured. "I don't know what I'm doing."

"I'll teach you," Muddy whispered back, and drew her down to the couch. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right. Intro to main plot and some drama is upcoming. I'm not being flexible with anything in the canon here, up till midway through Book 7, but I'm applying some creativity to actual world history. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who dropped by to kudo, bookmark, and especially to everyone who has commented so far!!! I appreciate all the responses and feedback! 

Mudblood kisses were gentle and soft, and Bella was a fast learner, or so Muddy told her halfway through. The feeling was close like holding, but more visceral and bodily, and the sweetness was so overwhelming that Bella’s mouth ached with it. It was timeless, and too quick. Bella thought that she had never felt anything at all like it before this moment, which happened all the time with Muddy. When the knock came at the door, Muddy pulled away quickly and Bella followed her along the couch.

Muddy relented. “One more.” She pulled Bella up to standing and kissed her with trembling hands on Bella’s shoulders. After that, Muddy touched her own lips with her fingertips and asked, “Is it the mark that does this? Is it just you?”

Bella shook her head. “What does it matter?”

“I’d like to control my fate,” Muddy said, and she went to the door to open it. 

“Wait,” Bella said, and Muddy paused, turning around but not coming back. “It was you that did this, you know. I left you alone at the Manor, and we wouldn’t have known each other if you hadn’t come to Mungo’s. That was your choice, not the mark’s. So why did you do it?”

Muddy looked down at the carpet, and Bella could see the flush in her cheeks deepen. “Let’s talk Sunday. We’ll keep the appointment. Ask for my table, will you?”

Bella scowled, but Muddy just looked at her, and Bella finally nodded and Muddy opened the door to a concerned Harry Potter and the smell of frying bread down the hall. Bella walked them to the door silently, respecting decorum, feeling out-of-place and trodden upon. 

“Do you like the room?” Potter asked as he reached for the door handle. Bella looked blankly at him, and he opened the door to leave, accepting the non-answer. Why was he asking? Was it because this was his house, and she his guest, despite the fact that he was not currently in residence? Was the room… his? 

Muddy preceded him out the door, and then Bella said, “Yes, I do. Whose is it?”

Potter turned around in the doorway, momentarily blocking Muddy from view. “Was. It was Sirius’s.” A look crossed his face, not smug, but somehow victorious. 

He shut the door behind him, and Bella leaned precariously against the wall and waited for her mind to still. Sirius, her cousin, young until he wasn’t, always a black sheep, iron-backed and defiant. It was easy to kill him, but she did remember the moment of his death well. Did that mean she regretted it? It was hard to dredge any feeling out of the sludge that was her past, but knowing that the room she’d liked so well was his - she’d been wondering who had made it so comfortable - she’d thought it was simple, but hadn’t minded that - it was like someone had prepared it just for her. Who knew that Sirius’s room would suit her so well? 

A flare of annoyance rose in her chest. So Potter _ had _ known which room she was staying in. He must have known she would eventually find out. What an underhanded ploy. Well, she wouldn’t let it bother her. Sirius was three years dead and buried, and Bella had an entire life ahead of her. A _ new _ life. An untethered existence. Aimless. Self-driven? 

She wandered up the stairs and looked at the titles of the books on Sirius’s shelf. Blood traitor works, some fiction, probably about half-breeds and werewolves and other filthy things. She picked out a likely looking one, slender enough that she thought she could get through it, and then she put her booted feet on his musty pillow in an act of defiance against Sirius and settled in to read. 

  
  


Hermione sipped pumpkin juice and tried to ignore everything around her. It was distressingly normal, now, but she’d tried to fight it the first week of school and it had only been worse. 

Ron had yelled at her in the courtyard yesterday when she and Harry had finally returned to Hogwarts from Grimmauld Place. It took time, after all, to travel to and from the main grounds. They had shortcuts, but had dallied at Grimmauld far longer than Ron would have liked. And the story of the fight spread like wildfire. Half of Hogwarts thought it was a lovers’ quarrel, and the other half was rabidly interested in the accusation Ron had thrown at her - that she’d been snogging Bellatrix Black, which had made her blush so deeply that he’d actually started crying in the middle of the courtyard. 

She’d stormed away from him, with the intention of explaining very clearly to him what their relationship was with each other, and what her relationship with Bellatrix was, at a later date and in a more private venue. But in the process of waiting, she’d become so incredibly infuriated at him that it overrode her good sense and the pity his crying had provoked, and now they sat at opposite ends of the Gryffindor table and Harry drifted between them, the lone sane person in this whole mess. 

Hermione didn’t even know many of these seventh years. She’d attended classes with the seventh years in her sixth year; even the students in her current year who were ahead a grade were only studying with the sixth years. Hermione wasn’t in those classes - hadn’t been in many classes with Harry, and fewer with Ron, and now she was re-taking a few of the classes, which was all fine until that stupid article by Rita Skeeter had inflated Ron’s self-respect and somehow landed him crying in the courtyard yesterday. 

It was midday, and Hermione had already written the letter. It said, _ Bella - I have studying to do, and need to delay our meeting to Tuesday night. _ It was true, and not true. Bellatrix Black could help her learn Transfiguration as well as her peers - better, surely. Bellatrix Black. Every time she thought the name, her stomach swooped pleasantly and her heart warmed. Overworn, but it had not lessened yet. 

Bella was an impossible puzzle, which delighted Hermione as it gave her the opportunity to mull over her endlessly. She was never bored, not anymore - anytime she got even slightly tired, her mind would turn to Bella, which had the effect of five coffees. Her body lay awake, night after night, alert to the possibility that at any moment, she could decide to go to Bella and have everything that she desired. 

And what was that? She touched her lips without thinking, and whispers erupted at the table around her. 

Hermione got up, leaving her lunch nearly untouched, and left the Great Hall. Her intention had been to go to her room, but her feet led her out of the castle and onto the grounds. The owlery crossed Hermione’s mind, but it was too late - she was already at Hagrid’s cabin. 

Hagrid wasn’t there, and she moved on, skirting the Forbidden Forest, walking swiftly. Bella Bella Bella Bella. Who was she? What did she want from Hermione? Why hadn’t she known what to do when Hermione kissed her - wasn’t she - hadn’t she… ? Kissed a single other person in the entire world? With that face? But the soul mark. Maybe she’d told people she had it, when she was young, and she’d waited and saved herself for Hermione this entire time. Hermione hadn’t told anyone about her own mark. She assumed she’d notice when she met her mate. And she had, although it was not what she’d expected. 

Yet it somehow was. Bella was ferocious, lethal, energetic, brilliant. And she was hesitant, nearly timid, sweet and tender. Was it the soul mark that made Hermione love it all? Who on earth _ wouldn’t? _

So she’d asked Bella to tell her who she was, and doubtless Bella was sitting there in Sirius’s old room and working out the proper answer to that question right now. Bella had asked her why she’d visited so often when she was at Mungo’s, and _ that _ was the real reason she couldn’t come to their meeting on Sunday morning anymore. She didn’t have the answer, and maybe Bella wouldn’t be disappointed at that, but maybe she’d ask again and Hermione wouldn’t be able to tell her. 

Her heart swelled and broke. This Bella was so - so _ tamed, _ curiously. She was not the blood-thirsty Death Eater she once was. And she was not the raving lunatic that she’d been during the first part of her stay at Mungo’s. The moment her head seemed to clear at all, she’d warded Hermione away. And yet - yet, wasn’t it already too late for them? For Hermione, who could not help but be swept away by these inexorable feelings, regardless of whether they were her own choice? Was it wrong that Hermione wished to be back at Mungo’s, with Bella looking at her with those eyes, curled up together in their own world? And Hermione had _ kissed _ her yesterday, without even meaning to, and it was so right and yet, not something she chose, which scared her.

But it didn’t scare her body. Her chest heaved with exertion, or passion, and she stopped walking abruptly and sat on a large rock at the edge of the forest. Hogwarts was there, in all its glory, still showing scars from the Final Battle. Hermione’s blood ran hot and she imagined Bella’s head between her legs, frustrated beyond reason by her own blushing hesitation to have her.

And yet, wasn’t she right to hesitate? Bella had been under house arrest, but for all intents and purposes free, for only two days. Who knew what she’d do next? Hermione would not be responsible for the most deadly of Voldemort’s followers. Perhaps Bella manipulated their connection - although how could she, the look she’d given Hermione when she explained that she did not know how to kiss - but if Hermione could monitor Bella, Bella could just as easily monitor her, and she would if she could. Wouldn’t she? Was it absolutely, completely naive to keep visiting her? Even if it fed her curiosity? And if she was as deeply in love with Bella as she could possibly be, right now - what was the use in stopping herself from having her? To have Bella - Hermione moaned in frustration, on the edge of leaving the Hogwarts grounds and just going to Grimmauld, to hell with this farce. 

She took the letter out of her bag and read it again. In the back of her mind, she thought about the transfiguration homework she needed to get done by Monday morning. She ripped up the letter - she’d see Bella tomorrow morning, they’d have tea or something at the shop, Bella would be wearing a face and Hermione would certainly not be letting her take her under the table when the server was away. She was safe, there, and she was certainly not safe at Grimmauld. Yesterday was proof enough of that. 

By the time Hermione was ready to go back to Hogwarts, it was nearly dark and the entire day had been wasted. Harry was waiting for her in the common room, an odd expression on his face. The whispers followed them out the door and down the corridor outside. They walked silently, until they were alone.

"I think you need to hear this from me," Harry began. "We both thought that the rumors were about the - that thing Ron said. It's worse, Hermione."

What could possibly be worse than that? Hermione watched as Harry unfolded a copy of the _ Prophet. _"Well," Harry began, stumbling. "First of all, there was a terrorist attack on America, remember? September 11th?"

"Right…" Hermione said, taking a seat on one of the carven benches and feeling the bite of cold stone through her jeans. 

"The American president has announced that they plan to invade Afghanistan. There's real talk about the Statute of Secrecy. Plenty of witches and wizards there that might be less than motivated to honor it. The Ministry has committed to taking proactive steps to make sure that doesn't occur. Bellatrix's name was mentioned. It could help her -" 

"They can't expect her to -"

"I think she has to help. It will help with her case, especially since it's just your word supporting the idea that she'd fought the Death Eaters during that sting operation that went so wrong."

"She can't keep fighting," Hermione protested, but she didn't push on that because she could see that Harry was not finished.

"The other headliner was about her. Apparently - supposedly," Harry stumbled. "Supposedly there were a number of - women who were mysteriously pregnant in Azkaban, and it was investigated and such, lots of guards were fired, the women were allowed to go to a different prison meant for shorter term sentences with their babies, and it all seemed to be somewhat resolved. Four women, actually. One of them just came forward and said it was Bellatrix - that the kids are all hers. They're all in their early teens - here, actually, at Hogwarts. There's - there's a photo, and names." He scrabbled at the newspaper a little, turning the pages. Before he got to the right page, Hermione had already stood up and walked away. 


	5. Chapter 5

Nymphadora waited at the base of the stairs as Bella tried yet another combination of the corset and two dresses she'd paid for express service on. Sirius hadn't a mirror in his room, which meant that Bella was subjected to the humiliating process of changing, and then going to the mirror in the hallway. Nymphadora watched her from the stairs as she tried to primp herself.

"It's 7:03, Bellatrix. Come down here so I can put your face on." She muttered something else under her breath, and Bella bounded down the stairs and stood impatiently before her. 

"You look terrifying. Is that what you were going for?" Nymphadora scowled at her, and then Bella felt the unpleasant wash of her magic over her face. 

Bella resisted the urge to run back up the stairs to see what face she’d been given. It didn’t matter what Bella looked like, really. After all. Muddy had kissed her, just two days ago, and she was elated at the thought of more kisses. Not at Madam Puddifoot's, of course, although it wouldn’t be the first time in the history of that place that snogging took place in full public view. Maybe they could walk away from the village after tea. Nymphadora wouldn’t leave them alone - apparently that was a condition of the house arrest - but she clearly wanted to get out of the house after who knows how long stuck taking care of that infant. Maybe she’d trust her with Hermione Granger, golden child, and apparently Nymphadora’s friend. She could go around in Hogsmeade, and Bella and Granger could get up to whatever lovers did alone in the woods. Bella’s heart raced in excitement.

“Come on,” Nymphadora grumbled, and she took Bella’s hand and they spun away. 

Nymphadora’s navigation was spot-on - they arrived at the circle meant for incoming visitors just beside Puddifoot’s. Bella led the way, striding impatiently with long legs around to the entrance and pulling open the door. 

It made such a racket that a few of the patrons looked up from their cups, and Puddifoot herself rushed to the front to greet her.

“Table for Granger,” Bella told her, trying not to move her lips too much. These illusions didn’t hold up, even when you didn’t speak. She was to be seated facing away from the rest of the room, hopefully in one of those enclosed booths at the back. Indeed, it was a booth that Muddy had reserved, and Bella sat with satisfaction at it. Nymphadora sat on the other side of the booth. She took her job as security detail seriously, and watched Bella suspiciously.

Bella’s knee hopped with impatience. She tried to remember everything she’d intended to ask Muddy, wishing that it seemed less like a doting aunt’s list of questions. _ How is school? How are your friends? Has Weasley died yet? When does the school year end, and what do you plan to do afterward? _

She’d brought the book she was reading, hoping that Muddy might recognize it and be proud of her for trying to read it. As she’d suspected, it was a blood traitor book, a romance about a witch who fell in love with a Muggle police officer. Bella hoped the Muggle man would die gruesomely, ideally with the witch holding him as the last of his lifeblood spouted out of him like a fountain. If she was writing the story, that’s what she’d do. The Killing Curse was too clean for this man, who’d been overbearing and rude, and overaggressive with his affections. The witch was from a pureblood family, the last scion like Bella herself, and she was sure that a half-blood Squib would come out of their union. The stupid witch would probably dote over the baby like nothing was wrong at all. 

Nymphadora studied her with sunken eyes, and Bella had the sudden urge to taunt her. “Does Teddy have hair in strange places?” she asked her niece.

“What is that supposed to mean?” 

“Don’t you remember the story of the werewolf -”

“Stop. Just stop, Bellatrix. You are -”

Bella hushed her, looking over her shoulder at the room filled with old hags and wizards far past their prime. “My name is Lucy, and if you say that other name again, I’m going to 'escape' to New Zealand and you’ll be blamed for it.” She grinned, liking the false name, delighting in the deception, however slight. 

Nymphadora huffed and turned her body away. The tea came, and Bella drank some of it, ignoring the cookies, wishing that she’d sat facing the door so that she didn’t have to turn to look every time it opened. 

“It’s eight,” Nymphadora said finally. “She stood you up.”

“Must have been delayed,” Bella said. She stood, and then sat back down. “We’ll wait.”

“I think Puddifoot wants the table.”

_ “Fine,” _ Bella grumbled, and she dropped a few sickles on the table and led the way to the exit, not bothering to check that Nymphadora followed, already composing the letter she’d send Muddy. Maybe she'd overslept, but Nymphadora was right that they couldn't wait forever. 

Just outside, the wind rushed chilly, catching leaves up in tiny hurricanes along the cobbled lane. Muddy was sitting forlornly on a bench in the sun across from Puttifoot’s. The sun caught her curls and lit them up, but the look on her face made Bella’s heart dip. 

She approached cautiously, and Muddy looked up at her. Her gaze skipped over to Nymphadora, and she stood and walked away down the street without a word.

Bella caught up with her quickly. “What is wrong, pet?” she asked, and Hermione just shot her a glare over her shoulder and walked faster.

As they neared the edge of the village, Bella could feel her face tingle as the illusion dissipated, and Muddy led her around the edge of the last cottage and into the woods. The leaves crunched under their boots. Nymphadora followed them at a safe distance, not leaving the road, and Muddy stopped before they were fully out of sight. A conspiracy to keep Bella under constant supervision. She couldn’t be irritated by it - Muddy was shivering, her face pale, and Bella tried to approach her only to have Muddy actually push her away with one gloved hand. 

“Is it true?” Muddy asked her, voice wavering and eyes lost.

"Is what true?" Having been scorned, Bella sat on a rock and folded her hands around her knees, waiting. What had unsettled Muddy so badly?

"The story in the _ Prophet. _ The babies conceived in Azkaban." 

Bella studied her hands, and after a pause, Muddy went on. 

"Fidelity Trebble. Was she your lover? And the rest? Is it a lie? Please tell me it is."

Muddy must be upset that she'd had relations before this. "She was just a toy to play with," Bella told her, and Muddy stamped her foot and then walked away. Bella followed her. “It was a game, Hermione.”

Muddy turned around to face her, looking shocked and slightly pleased. Then her face fell again, and Bella cursed herself for the underhanded attempt to distract her. She should have known that it wouldn’t work. She tried a different angle. 

“We were all in prison. There was so little to do there, and - Trebble was so defiant, fresh and new. What does it matter? It was a long, long time ago. They all got out of Azkaban. It was a good trick.” She smiled in remembering how well it had worked. To have pulled the wool over their imprisoners' eyes, and to have gotten away with it. All the worst of the guards were dismissed. It had been a victory. 

“You did it so that they could escape? There are _ children, _ Bellatrix. Have you ever even thought of that? Did you ever -”

Bella shrugged and waved her hand dismissively, and Muddy stared at her in mounting disgust. 

“So it is true.”

“They asked me to help them, after Trebble was removed from Azkaban. If I couldn’t escape, at least I could help them.”

“You’re _ disgusting,” _ Muddy spat, and Bella recoiled.

“I was thirty years old, and in prison for life. You can’t blame me for what I chose to do.” Bella puffed up her chest, indignant. Something warm and small in her chest was curling in on itself, shrinking sadly, hiding away.

Muddy shook her head and disappeared with a _ pop, _ leaving a small whirlwind of leaves in her wake.

Bella trudged back to Nymphadora, who looked at her curiously. 

“Let’s go back,” she asked her niece, and for once the girl did not ask any more questions.

Sirius’s room was cold. The window was open, and Bella closed it, tossing the blood traitor book into the corner of the room, where it lay open and crooked, the pages bent. She put her feet up on Sirius’s pillow and let her head fall back over the edge of the bottom of the bed, looking at the door upside-down. 

Stupid, stupid Bella. The confrontation surprised her. She hadn’t thought about those women in a long time - not since she’d gotten out of Azkaban, certainly. It had been _ fun _, or whatever passed for fun in that place. She’d been providing them a service, nothing more. Muddy wanted her to care about the babies, but Bella had nothing to do with them - she’d been only slightly involved, and just in their conception. The babies were their mothers’. None had tried to contact her. She tried to do the math - it was nine, ten years ago? Longer? For the first time, she imagined the babies as children, wearing Slytherin robes. She wondered whether if you put them all together they would look alike.

She grinned, imagining it, and then her heart fell as she remembered Muddy again. Damn it. It would have been much better if Muddy had never known about this. Bella didn't mind that the children existed, she supposed. They must all be absolute demons, terrorizing Hogwarts, all nearly the same age. Whatever age that was. But it wasn't worth it, to have Muddy so upset. 

What did Muddy want her to do, now? There weren't many clues. She mentioned that the children existed. She thought Bella should have thought of them earlier. Did she want her to meet them, try to be their parent now after a lifetime of not knowing her? Surely there was no void in their hearts which she could fill. And Bella did not care about the brats, so she shouldn't pretend that she did.

Maybe Muddy wanted her to continue to ignore them. That would be easiest, and better for her, probably. It was hard to imagine a world where Bella was an active parent to four kids, and also romantically involved with a seventh-year Hogwarts student. When she thought of Muddy like that - only just a few years older than the babies she'd sired, the age her children would have been if she'd been married off - if her mark hadn't protected her from that - it made her recoil from the thought of developing a closer relationship with Muddy. She was, truly, just a girl. She hadn't even finished school. She was brilliant - even Bella had heard the rumors, and seeing the way she transfigured that water and how she angled the _ Protego _ to protect that Death Eater last week - yes, even Bella could clearly see that her soul mate was uniquely talented, precise and powerful with her spellcasting. Even so, she was still _ so _ young, and although Bella did not know where she'd go next in her life, and had been trapped in Azkaban for about a third of what she had lived, it was not the same as being so young.

What did you do, with a soul mate not even half your age? Bella traced the cracks in the door frame, head spinning, and remembered the old tale of Muri and the Vagabond. The Vagabond knew that Muri was his soul mate, although she was only a child, and he took her in and made her his daughter when she was orphaned. One day, she found out what a soul mate was, and killed him and then herself, feeling cheated of the chance at love as he was her father, wishing he had told her the truth when they first met. The good of the story was that nobody knew who was right - the Vagabond, probably, for caring for her and treating her as his own child. For that, he had been murdered by the girl he'd loved - loved the way he thought was right.

But wasn't that love, though? Something that burned so brightly had an equal chance to destroy. Bella could not pretend that she was not physically attracted to her soul mate, but that didn't mean that it was appropriate for her to continue their liaison without setting better boundaries and expectations. It was no wonder that Muddy was upset about the kids, Bella decided. She had every right to be, and yet it was something that was bound to happen, because Muddy was so much younger than Bella and Bella would always have lived a full, long life before Muddy, while Muddy's life had just begun. 

Nymphadora shouted through the floor at her. The Malfoys were coming for dinner, she remembered. She shot a glance at the blood traitor book, remembering the fountain of blood she'd hoped for at the close of it, and then she rolled her eyes and wandered downstairs to chop vegetables and set the table with her sister and niece.

Dinner was a largely silent affair of long looks and haughty sniffing. The ties that bound her to the Malfoys were stronger than ever after the events at the Final Battle, but ties like that did not necessarily make for good dinnertime conversation. Then Lucius asked about Afghanistan.

"What about Afghanistan?" Bella gripped her knife tightly. "What is there to know about it?"

"The Ministry might have a short memory, but I do not." Lucius raised one eyebrow and looked straight at Bella. He'd ignored Nymphadora and Andy all night. "I remember it was you that retrieved that old ritual from that place, the - the Horcrux ritual." Bella spit a chunk of gristle out onto a napkin and shuddered. "You were gone for nearly a year. You _ know _ that place, whether you admit it or not."

"Nearly impossible to kill the damn bastards. Every one of them has stored their soul somewhere else." Bella looked at Lucius for a long, measured breath, and then said, "The Dark Lord stored his soul in three Horcruxes that I know of. Could be more. It is likely that -"

Lucius cut the air with his hand, a gesture of finality. "The Potter boy says he found and destroyed them all. Dumbledore knew about the Horcruxes, and told Potter." He said the boy's name with hatred, although they had all ended up on the same side in the end.

"Better watch your tone, Lucius," Bella sing-songed, although she did feel relieved to hear that the Dark Lord was likely not to come back. She channeled that energy into her cackle. "Potter is the Chosen One, and your trial is yet to come." 

Lucius had the good sense to look unnerved. It was Narcissa that spoke. "So is yours, sister. They won't let you off for madness, although maybe they should."

"Did you tell them I was in Afghanistan?" Both of the Malfoys wiped their lips with their napkins and then sat back, staring her down. 

"Well, fuck it." Bella pushed her seat away from the table and stood up. "So the list of my charges will be longer. It doesn't matter."

Everyone at the table stared up at her, and then Andy said, "She hasn't seen the news."

"What haven't you told me?" Bella asked Andy, and she slid back down into her seat. 


	6. Chapter 6

The rest of the conversation was stilted, and by the time the Malfoys were standing at the threshold of the door, the wine had made it to Bella's head and she giggled at them both, so straight-backed, so cowed by their current circumstances. 

Although Andromeda had trailed them, Narcissa leaned close enough that the middle sister wouldn't hear her. "The story of those bastard children - we have, of course, made our position clear. A ploy for attention with no basis in reality. Sister?" Her voice curled up in an expectant question at the end. Trying to extract a commitment from Bella. 

"Could be," Bella cackled, pulling away, and Lucius yanked the door open for himself. Narcissa trailed in his wake, and Bella slammed the door behind them and kept laughing. 

Andy studied her, sober. "What did she ask you?"

"If the children in the news are mine," Bella said. "They think it's uncouth. Of course it is, but I'd rather not try to uphold a lie when the truth is so easily obtained."

Andy did not comment further, and Bella went with her back to the drawing room with the port. Nymphadora was there, trying to feed her squalling infant with a bottle while sipping port herself, and Bella helped herself to a goblet full and lazed with satisfaction on the settee, swirling the port in the goblet, watching her sister and niece. 

Andy showed her a photo in the _ Prophet _, and as Bella thought, the child in the photo looked just like her. He seemed to squirm out of his mother's grip, turning his face away from the camera. "Ravenclaw?" 

Andy shrugged. "The rest are in Slytherin."

"Huh." Bella considered this. "Andy, can I ask you something?" Nymphadora bent with renewed concentration over the baby in her arms, ears obviously pricked. 

Andy nodded warily, and Bella dropped into the couch beside her. "Muddy asked me about that whole thing this morning. She didn't tell me… exactly why she was so upset. It matters little what I did so long ago, before I knew her name. What seems to matter more is what I choose to do now, and I do not know what that should be."

Andy stared at her. "Are you asking me… for _ romantic advice?" _

Bella huffed, stood up, and began pacing. She shot glances at Andy, waiting, and finally Andy said, "It has been a very long time since we were on speaking terms, Bella. How much of that was because of the Dark Lord, and our father? And how much was because you thought I was a blood traitor for loving Ted?"

Bella saw Nymphadora tense, and she realized that a lot hinged on this question. Andy waited as Bella thought it through, and then she said, "Muddy is the same as Ted was." She stopped pacing, held her ground and looked Andy in the eye. "If we were to marry, the marriage would be recognized. But would I be stricken from the family portrait, erased and disowned? If old Cygnus was alive, he'd do that. It wouldn't be automatic, though, Andy. Remember Theodonius." A Mudblood paired with a powerful pureblood witch, whose heirs were considered purebloods by way of their shared mark. 

Andy blew out a breath. "I wondered if you'd thought of him."

"It is only that it was a powerful witch he was mated to, and the Abbots were at their prime. Would I wield such influence? In these days, with the Blood Right so degraded, it doesn't seem to matter what my influence is. If anything, it is hers that might have more sway."

Bella turned and began pacing again, and Andy still did not say anything. She could see that Bella was not finished. 

"Tom Riddle was not a pureblood," Bella told them, and the women glanced at each other in confusion. _ "Him," _she clarified, not wanting to call him the Dark Lord in this company, but unable to get her mouth around the moniker that the Lord had been called by the weak of will. 

Finally, Andy seemed to get it. "You mean Voldemort? That's impossible."

Bella shrugged. "Don't I know it? But it's true. His name is _ Riddle. _ No exotic, imported pureblood name. His father was a Muggle. I followed Him, even knowing that - I knew it for years, sister, before Azkaban."

"You didn't care?" Andy squeaked out.

"The truth is that I do not know what I care about." Bella dropped down, elbows on her knees and legs splayed wide, looking into the goblet. The port was so dark it looked black, and there was no reflection on its surface. 

She sighed heavily. "I was not - Muddy was inconveniently my enemy, but I was not disappointed that she was a Mudblood. I would have been surprised if she'd been pureblooded, hiding for so many years from me. I had as much control over the fact of her blood as I did Orion's striking your name from our family tree. I didn't fight it, because I would have only been disowned, too, and what would be left of me without the family name?"

"You ought to stop calling her Muddy," Nymphadora said from the corner. She'd long ago stopped pretending she wasn't listening. 

Bella ignored her. "What does it matter, if her blood becomes pure by way of our mark or not? When there is nobody left to strike us from the tree, and the world has rejected the Blood Right once again? It's fashionable to cross-marry." Bella flicked her wrist. "I am tired of the old debate, the game of cards which is at a perpetual stalemate. I'd rather find a path for me that doesn't depend on someone else telling me that they have the winning hand.

"Come with me," Bella said, and led the women with her down the dark corridors to the family tree. Predictably, it was shrouded, but Bella pulled it down easily without the aid of magic.

She addressed the tapestry directly. "I, Bellatrix Black, am the Head of House Black, Noble and Most Ancient." The tapestry made no movement, but she could feel it wake. "I hereby rescind the striking of Andromeda Black from the family." They all watched as the tapestry struggled with the command. And then, as if it had never been removed, Andy's name appeared. "Andromeda Tonks," the tapestry read. And below that, the tapestry unfurled, although the proportions of the wall didn't seem to allow it. "Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin," was the next name, and below hers, "Edward Remus Lupin."

"It's never held names that were not 'Black,'" Andy whispered, but she did not seem to mind it.

"I hereby resend the striking of Sirius Black from the family," Bella told the tapestry, and Sirius's name reappeared. Below him, there was nothing that continued the main branch of the tree. The house seemed to shake. There were no names without a death date, except those Bella had just added, and her own. The house accepted her as the heir. 

Bella shook her head and threw back the last of the port, and then she went up the stairs without another word. 

  
  


"There are seven wizarding clans in the desert." Bellatrix addressed the gathered Aurors from an interrogation seat, although she had not taken Veritaserum and she was not restrained. They were arrayed like a huge tribunal before her. "Or there were, twenty years ago when I was there."

"Which of those might help the terrorists that attacked America?" It was the Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, who stood in the shadows at the back of the room.

Bellatrix laughed. "I don't even know who the terrorists are, let alone who might be allied with them. Surely you have some experts in the Middle East that you could draw on for that."

"We need to go there to have real answers. NATO is going, which means the British army will be involved. I have asked the Prime Minister to embed a unit of our Aurors."

It was more information than Bella had expected to get from the normally close-mouthed Minister. She weighed his words, and then said, "None of your Aurors have been there before. You don't know what you'll be up against."

"That is why the Auror unit will be a cover for what we really intend to do. We must neutralize the clans you speak of. Using whatever means necessary."

"Wizard against wizard," Bella mused. The gathered Aurors looked uncomfortable, although she could not tell what the heart of their discomfort was - if it was her, or the plan itself, that made them blanch. 

"We can't have another Georgia," Shacklebolt said. "The risks to the Statute are too great. The entire incursion will be covered by Muggle media crews. Their cameras make moving pictures, and even Muggles can't be blind enough to miss some magicks. The true battlefront must be maintained far away from the Muggle front lines."

"The Americans have flying cameras, called 'dromes,'" one of the Aurors added. "They can see farther than the naked eye. We will have to stay indoors, away from sight. Our soldiers will dress in the womens' robes, which cover their faces."

"Why are you telling _ me _this?" Bella asked them, looking directly at Shacklebolt. 

"You already know the reason why, Madam Black." Shacklebolt's lips curled back into an unpleasant expression. 

"Tell me," she challenged him. "Are you asking me for something other than information?"

"No," Shacklebolt's grimace faded and he stepped into the light. "We wouldn't do that to you, Madam. But we are looking for volunteer veterans from the Last War on this - volunteers from both sides. It is not only you."

"Afghanistan is the new Azkaban," Bella clarified sharply. "I have heard that you do not plan to rebuild that hellhole."

"We have replaced it with other prisons, yes. But Afghanistan is not a place we intend to send prisoners to die. Do not think that."

"And this time, the Ministry does not intend to recruit children for the cause?" Bella scowled at the Aurors, and again there was a collective sigh through the room. 

"Do not pretend that your hands are clean, Madam Black. We all did things we wished we did not need to do."

Bella stood. "Am I free to go?" 

"Yes." Shacklebolt opened the door for her, and she passed through without a second glance. 

  
  


_ Hermione, _

_ I have thought on our last conversation, and have these things to say. I will say them without any attempt at deceit, which I hope will help you hear me clearly. _

_ If you wished for remorse, you won't get it. I have done many things in my life that I regret, but getting those women out of Azkaban is not one of those things. If you wished I had told you sooner, I must tell you truthfully that I did not think of the babies until you confronted me about them, nor do I feel anything toward them or their mothers. I never did. _

_ Andy says that I should ask you what you want me to do, now. I should not act until I know your wishes, and I plan to wait for as long as it takes. Trust me when I tell you that I can, and will, wait forever for you. _

_ I hope it will not be that long. I am not practiced at this. I have not written a real letter - perhaps ever, I cannot remember the last time. I know this: that some force in this world, some magic, thought that we would suit each other well. I hope that in living my life without you, I did not spoil that chance forever. If I had made each decision with the knowledge that we would eventually find each other, I would certainly have done different things. If I had known who you were, as I do now, I would have had something to guide me through the many decisions circumstance forced upon me. _

_ I swear to you that moving forward, I will try not to make any such mistakes that would endanger our chances at what could be a good life. _

_ Please write or call on me when you have your answer. _

_ Lovingly yours - _

_ B. _


	7. Chapter 7

Bella lay on her back in Sirius's old bed, legs extended straight up against the adjoining wall. The position made all the blood rush to her head, drowning out the voices, leaving a pleasant blankness. 

It had been the same in Azkaban. She lay like this then, too, in her solitary cell, waiting for the chance to go out and play with the other inmates and guards. When she was finished plotting the next torture for them, she stuck her feet up like this and let the misery roll over her in waves, dulled by the blood in her head and by the innate helplessness of the posture. Bellatrix Black, helpless? It was not true, but the pose was an experiment in the experience. 

This was more comfortable than Azkaban, obviously. This was only waiting - waiting for a letter, a sign. She supposed it could be seen as sweet, this waiting. She wondered if it could redeem the rest of the wrongs she'd committed - just waiting, waiting for a young lover who was still a stranger but meant too much to Bellatrix for words. 

Her heart pattered desperately, suddenly, and she swung her legs down to curl them against her chest, rocking a little. A short respite, maybe, this waiting. A chance to heal a little, when she'd had so little rest before. Her mind turned to the Aurors and Afghanistan. Maybe she wanted the fight again. Maybe she wanted her blood to boil - to kill again, to have a mission however unpleasant. It had been a long time since she was so aimless. 

She remembered her own seventh year at Hogwarts. She remembered Professor McGonagall pulling her aside after class and asking her why, after six years of excelling, it seemed that she would fail her NEWT in Transfiguration. That year she'd decided to join Lord Voldemort; had given up on the thought of a career, and planned for only war. 

McGonagall was wrong to think that she'd fail that test, though. She barely passed her classes, turning in no homework the entire year, but she'd gotten five Os and two Es and been offered three jobs in the ministry and an assistant teacher job at a small private school in Ireland. None of it interested her. She'd been seduced by the idea of upending the world. 

What NEWTs was Hermione studying for? A smart girl. Despite her blood status, she'd probably get just the same job offers that Bellatrix had. The war was over. Her Muddy would have a place in peacetime, and Bellatrix would be a tabloid star and aimless. 

Unless she enlisted to fight. To protect the Statute of Secrecy, which the Dark Lord had aimed to destroy. And Bellatrix - yes, maybe she thought the Muggles should serve wizards, sure - but the war was over, and the Dark Lord was dead, and all Bellatrix knew was to fight. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea. 

She wandered down the stairs to find Nymphadora with the damn squalling infant. The infant was in its crib and Nymphadora was ignoring it, head buried in some thin, wide book with big pictures. Bella collapsed on the couch and then conjured, wandlessly, carefully, a hanging mobile over the crib for the child. Fine, thin paper cranes ornamented it, and it spun lazily until the kid kicked one of the cranes and it went up in flame.

Nymphadora tossed Bella a look, her hair turning a bright bubblegum pink, and extinguished the flame, scolding the baby. She seemed to consider the mobile. 

"Kid's got to learn not to destroy stuff," Bella told her. 

"Do you hear that, Teddy?" Nymphadora said. "Your aunt told you not to set your toys on fire." Then she went back to the couch, picking the book back up. 

Bella turned the words over carefully in her mind, wondering.  _ Aunt.  _ Weirder shit she'd never hear. She kicked at the rug and said, "Maybe I can walk him around the neighborhood."

Nymphadora put the book down on her knees. "You aren't allowed out of the house unescorted."

"Kid doesn't count? I'm not going to leave him in a dumpster and I sure as hell don't intend to live a life on the run with the little monster."

Nymphadora actually seemed to consider that argument. She shrugged. "Ask Mom."

It all ended with Bella pushing a Muggle stroller along the dreary London streets with her sister in tow. The stroller was an absolute pain and the Muggle-proof charm she'd put on herself didn't seem to stop passerby from staring at the odd sight. 

"Not a word," Bella huffed at Andy while they waited for another interminable street light to turn. "Not a single damn word about this." Andy smirked. 

  
  


Muddy's return letter arrived that night. It was only a day of waiting. Muddy must be as anxious and distracted by the drama as Bella was. She must be. 

Bella turned the letter lovingly over in her hands, over and over. She sat at Sirius's desk and took out her stolen wand, which as always twisted uncomfortably and unwillingly in her hand. It was not a wand she'd won. It was just a stand-in, contraband. She thought if she went to Afghanistan they'd let her buy a new wand, and the thought appealed to every fiber of her being. To be free, even as she served. Even a cause she did not believe in - it would be better than this interminable waiting. These chains of love that Bella had wrapped herself in. The powerlessness of waiting all day for a letter. 

And what would Muddy say to her? Having the letter in hand, now Bella hesitated to open it. Closed, it held its secrets. Closed, it could say anything. Once she opened it, the wait would be over, but her fate would be sealed and she hated the thought. 

She opened the window and stuck her body out into the cool night air. She flipped open a pack of Muggle cigarettes, a fashion in the year of Voldemort's rule, a teenage rebellion that appealed in some deep way to Bellatrix, and smoked two cigarettes out the window. 

Then she opened the letter.

_ Bella - _

_ Thank you for your thoughtful letter. It was an unpleasant surprise to me to find out that the rumor was true. I need time to acclimate to the idea of it. I thought that you'd waited all this time for me. That was foolish.  _

_ I was in my second year when I found out what the mark on my shoulder must mean. You have no idea how many stupid romances I read that year. I thought that the mark would make it easy, like in those stories. Circumstances might have intervened, but the marked pair always found each other, and then the story ended.  _

_ I wonder what you thought I would be. You must have grown up knowing that you'd find me. I could never have dreamed that the bearer of my mark would be you, but every once in a long while I'd see someone who I thought might be you, and they were always a disappointment but they always did look a little like you. I was never sorry to finally know for sure that they had no mark on their shoulder.  _

_ I am not disappointed that it is you. I am scared and confused, yes. I am as afraid as I was that night at the Malfoys when we found each other. For a while I thought that you'd come after me, and redeem yourself, just because of our shared mark. I wondered why you hadn't saved me the moment we found each other. I thought that meant that it was not supposed to happen for us, and I tried to deny the fact that no matter what the complicating circumstance,  _ _ the mark does not lie. _ _ _

_ But then you did redeem yourself, and I went to find you. What I found was a deranged monster, and again I thought it meant that it was too late for us. _

_ But Bella, when I held you in Mungo's, I loved you anyway. Maybe there is no reason for it, but I know you deeply and I think you know me, too. When your madness cleared, and you looked at me, I could feel that knowing in my bones. These circumstances - these unpleasant surprises - they will come, and they will come.  _

_ I am not your redemption, and I refuse to allow myself to be blinded by the feeling of holding you, to forgive you when you have not earned that. So this is not forgiveness - I will not succumb so easily to you when you have done nothing to deserve me.  _

_ But I'll give you the chance. I wasn't your redemption, but you redeemed yourself anyway. That means more than any words would have. I'm glad that you didn't grovel in your letter, not if you aren't sorry for what you did. Maybe it's ok that you're not sorry. I haven't decided. _

_ Either way, it is clear to me that our story does not end when we find each other. It will not be easy.  _

_ I will meet you at the Leaky Cauldron on Saturday at 10am and we can go shopping. I have some supplies I need to pick up. Wear the same face you wore in Hogsmeade.  _

_ -H _

Another four days of waiting! Bella threw the letter to the ground in disgust, and then she picked it back up and read it over a few more times. 

She'd been wrong to call Muddy a child. Hermione Granger was smarter and wiser than Bellatrix had ever been. Especially now, because all Bella wanted to do was storm the gates of Hogwarts and have her young lover now. Waiting - all she had was to wait! Bella stamped impatiently in circles in Sirius's old room and cursed bitterly at the cruel stars that crossed the day her soul mate was born. 

  
  


Saturday morning, 10am, did come at last. Andy escorted her this time, and they drank coffee as Bella ranted to her about the unfortunate ending of the blood traitor book. There were guts spilled, but not the Muggle - the corrupt Auror had died, and the pureblood family had come to the wedding, and Bella had actually burned the book in the fireplace in disgust. 

"I'm glad to hear that you are finding pleasure in literature," Andy only said, and Bella chuckled darkly and hated her. 

"I only read it for Hermione," she said. "And now I can't tell her anything about it, since it ended so  _ horribly. _ " Her knee jumped in anxiety. It felt like the tea shop all over again - Muddy wouldn't show, and this time Bella would burn down Hogwarts to get to her. 

"And that you're calling her by her given name," Andy added. 

"Had to start eventually," Bella growled. "What time is it?"

Andy cast the time charm. "9:50. You're the one who insisted on coming an hour early."

Finally, there she was. Her hair was tamed, no bushy mane. She wore a striped sweater, and she was lean and gorgeous, her face clear of any imperfection. She was perfect. 

Bella stood, knocking the table in her haste. She fought the urge to do something ridiculous - to kiss Muddy's hand, or bow. Her heart thundered in gratitude, and she stood there dumbly as Muddy walked to the table, smiling uncertainly. 

Andy spoke first. "A pleasure as always, Ms. Granger. I have some matters of my own to attend to - I'm sure that you can make your way on your own. I will see you back here - or will you bring her back to Grimmauld yourself?"

"Erm," Muddy said, looking nearly as confused as Bella was. She put her hand in her pocket. "I can bring her back, so we don't have to coordinate."

"Absolutely," Andy said, smiling serenely, immune to the awkwardness. Bella still stood there at the table, wordless. "The charm on her face - you can take it over?"

"Yes?" Muddy said. She took her hand back out of her pocket, fidgeting. 

"Have fun," Andy said, and as she left she whispered something in Muddy's ear that made Muddy's smile return brilliantly. 

Muddy took the seat Andy vacated, and Bella sat down. "I'd have some coffee," Muddy observed.

Bella shook herself out of the daze and called for service. When the waiter left, she still sat there, feeling her heart begin to enter her throat. She thought she would probably cry, inexplicably. 

"It's strange with your face - oh, there it goes," Muddy said, and the cold wash over Bella's face told her that the illusion had faded with Andy's absence. "It's all right - we're in a booth, nobody will probably see us. Just don't look around."

When she'd said that, she stopped talking, seeming just as spellbound as Bella was.

"I'm sorry," Bella said, finally. "I have one thousand questions for you, but for the life of me I can't think of a single one."

"Same," Muddy said.

"Thank you for your letter. I didn't know if you wanted more of a reply."

"If you're asking if I'd like to dwell on that unpleasantness, the answer is decidedly  _ not," _ Muddy told her dryly. 

"Good," Bella said. "And the question I posed in my first is not pressing." The question of how to behave about the children. 

Muddy nodded, looking to the side. "I am still thinking about my answer."

"You have all the time in the world." Bella's chest was tight. "There is another question, though, which is more urgent."

"The war," Muddy said quietly. She looked back into Bella's eyes. "They are asking you to join."

Bella extracted a folded letter from one of her pockets and laid it on the table between them. "They are adamant that it isn't required. But - perhaps -"

"If you go, I'm quitting school and going with you." It was all in a rush; it took just a breath for Muddy, and then she reached across the table and grabbed Bella's hands in hers. 

"Well, that would be exceedingly dumb," Bella said sharply, without thinking. She turned her hands over and held Hermione's in her own. "Even I finished school and took my NEWTs."

"I won't have you gone, not like that. I won't say you can't go, but I have to go with you."

Bella's heart skipped and ran in her chest. "You are not making any sense. Mud - Hermione. Do you know what I do, day after day, under house arrest in Grimmauld? Do you think I am owling my countless friends and admirers? At war I can be useful again. But you are useful already, in school. You have a future. I have - I have nothing at all."  _ Except you. _

Muddy's eyes were filling with tears. "You don't think I feel like a - an absolute  _ tool, _ completely out of place, back in school? I fought too, you know." Her eyes burned fiercely, and she leaned forward. Her voice was not loud, but somehow it shook Bella anyway. "And I want to be with you more. I can't take just Saturdays. I want to see you every day. If I was out of Hogwarts I could."

Bella had thought Muddy was imposing distance out of some sense of restraint. She laughed a little, delighted at finding out the truth of it. "Well, then, since I have nothing but time and you are bereft of it, I should visit you at school."

Hermione seemed to consider the idea, sniffling. She extracted one hand to wipe her face with a conjured handkerchief, and then disappeared the thing and put her hand back in Bella's. "You'd have to ask McGonagall and you'd never be allowed in my room."

"A shared room, is it not?" Bella asked, but Hermione was shaking her head. 

"I'm still a prefect, even if I never got a shot at Head Girl." 

Bella smiled, and then tried to erase the smirk, fearful of seeming lecherous. This was her soul mate - a girl in school -  _ of age  _ \- it mattered not, she would not go into the girl's room. Truly she smiled because Muddy seemed so downtrodden at the thought of not being Head Girl, because of course she would be disappointed not to excel in all things. 

Hermione seemed to have had enough time to collect her thoughts, because then she said, "Visit me by Floo from Afghanistan, you mean?"

Bella frowned. "I am not set upon going to war. If anything I am - I am unsure, truthfully, if that -"

"Then don't," Muddy breathed. She raked her eyes over Bella, and Bella was grateful to find that her own admiring looks had never verged quite so far into lust as the look the girl gave her now. Bella straightened her back to more fully display her assets and, when Muddy's eyes finally reached hers, she smirked and leaned over the table so that their breath mingled there. 

"I will do whatever pleases you the most, my dear -"

Hermione stood suddenly, drawing Bella up. She deposited a sickle on the table - far too much, but it didn't seem to matter to her - and then she said, "Come with me, then."

Bella nodded slightly, and Hermione Disapparated them away to a birch forest. 

"Where…" Bella asked, but Hermione shook her head and placed a hand on each of Bella's hips. 

The warmth of her suffused Bella, and she nearly closed her eyes in contentment. This was it, she remembered. This was why she stayed, under arrest. This was why she'd considered enlisting. Just for this, the closeness of Muddy, the sense of her, the  _ smell _ of her hair and her skin.

Muddy's breath raced - Bella could see the heaving of her chest - but still she waited, holding Bella's waist. Bella put her hands on the insides of Muddy's elbows, gently. She leaned forward and down - she was, after all, a half foot taller than Hermione - and put her forehead against the girl's, breathing softly, feeling the puffs of Hermione's sharp breaths against her lips. 

"What has upset you?" Bella murmured.

"I - nothing, Bella, I just wanted you to myself." The waver in her tone suggested otherwise, but Bella just hummed and stepped in closer, moving her hands to rest gently on Hermione's shoulders. 

"Well, isn't this an idyllic scene to have just that."

Hermione actually moaned slightly, the sound wrenching something in Bella's stomach that she had never felt before. Hermione closed the distance that had seemed unbreachable, the space between their lips, and Bella kissed her with conscious effort, carefully mindful of the lesson in kissing from last week. 

This time, Hermione did not stop at light grazes of the tongue. She didn't stop at the barrier of Bella's teeth, either, sliding her tongue deeper, sucking and nipping, and then her hands ran up Bella's stomach to her chest and she rested a hand on each breast, relying upon Bella's strength to stop her from bowling Bella over onto the leafy ground. 

Slowly, they backed into one of the birch trees, with Hermione pinning Bella to it. Her hands became more greedy, skimming the skin of Bella's exposed neck and chest, and then dipping lower. Bella pulled away from the kiss to breathe, and then she gently took Hermione's face in her hands and kissed her cheeks and forehead. "I am certain that when you arranged to meet me, you were not planning this." 

Confusion passed over Hermione's face, and she nodded shortly. 

"And I understood that you have shopping to do. Should we, perhaps -"

Hermione laughed, her breath puffing out visibly in the cold forest. "Do you mean that you don't want our first time to be up against a tree?"

"Perhaps," Bella admitted gently. "I would like to savor you," she added, to be sure that Muddy did not mistake her pulling the brake for general hesitation. 

Muddy stepped away, breasts still heaving. "Back to the Cauldron, then," she said. Her lips thinned in some expression of regret, and then she stepped back into Bella's arms to steal a final kiss. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who liked and especially, commented! Comments really keep me going... Hope you like this next one.

It was only a few minutes into Diagon Alley, the false face restored by Muddy and feeling less comfortable than ever, that Bella had the certain feeling of eyes watching her. She glanced over her shoulder, and Muddy turned to follow her gaze. 

Nobody was there - sure, the bustle of the crowd, but no special attention. Bella turned back around and asked Muddy a follow-up question on the topic of their conversation - again, a NEWT-level transfiguration puzzle that Bella felt only vaguely guilty about helping her solve - and tried to shrug off the feeling.

Yet it persisted. Looking behind her again did nothing to alleviate the sensation. She shivered, and Muddy led her to a small bookstore.

The door closed behind them, and Bella relaxed. Muddy looked at her questioningly, but she just shrugged. “Advanced Elemental Theory?” she prompted, and Muddy turned obligingly away to search the shelves.

The feeling was back. Bella opened the shop door back up, looking outside again. Nothing - there was nobody. It was magical scrying. The Dark Lord. 

She must have looked pale and shaken, because again Muddy asked her what was wrong. “Nothing - just a bad feeling I have,” Bella told her. 

“Should - do you want to leave, then?”

“We just - what else was on your list?”

“Some potion ingredients.  _ Felix Felicis _ is banned, of course, in school - but I thought I’d try to make it.” Muddy smiled slightly, shyly. “For you.” 

Bella almost didn’t hear her, but at her look she focused again. “How sweet,” she said, trying but likely failing to be genuine. 

“Seriously, Bella -”

“Lucy! Remember?” Maybe she'd never told Muddy.

“What?”

“My alias,” Bella said, and grinned. “My  _ real name,  _ Muddy.”

Muddy scowled, but Bella could tell that it was only skin-deep. She chuckled happily at Muddy, enjoying herself, before the feeling came back and her smile faded. “Let’s get it done quickly and get back, then,” she offered. 

“Stop calling me by that name,” Muddy mumbled, but she moved to the register to pay for the heavy book.

“The Muggleborn stipend must be generous,” Bella commented when they exited the store. “If you can pay for  _ Felix _ ingredients."

Muddy shrugged a little. “Honestly, Harry has a lot of money and set up a credit line for me. I would feel guilty about it, but I know it’s not really that much money in the - in the real world. And a tiny, tiny portion of what he has. He’s not using it anyway.”

Bella hummed noncommittally and wondered how much of that money was derived from the Black fortune. Her mind turned quickly back to the person scrying her. The Dark Lord’s presence had a distinct flavor. Was this that flavor? She committed to renewing her Untraceable charm the moment she got back into her room. Maybe that would get her in trouble, but she could always say that her original charm had unusual longevity. She  _ was _ under house arrest. They wouldn’t want her Untraceable.  _ Whatever. _

Muddy had continued to talk, something about investments and money wasting away in vaults. Something called interest, and venture capital, and Bella couldn’t really follow the topic even if she’d tried. 

The shopping done, Muddy sidealonged with Bella back to the entrance of Grimmauld Place. They bustled through the entry quickly, and Bella felt with relief the magical observation pull away instantly. 

The house shuddered, as it had begun to do, when she entered. The baby in the drawing room fussed, and Muddy looked around them as the shaking ceased. The charm fell off Bella’s face in a cold wash. 

“What was that?” she asked Bella, already heading toward the stairs. 

Bella trailed her with some hesitation. “It’s just - the house just gets a little excited lately.”

“When people enter? That must be annoying.” Muddy took the stairs two at a time, and Bella picked up her pace to keep up. 

“Just - just when I enter.”

“It doesn’t want you here?” Muddy asked. 

“Where are you going, anyway?” Bella returned, thinking that a change of subject might save her from talking about the damn house.

“My room,” Muddy said, and Bella stopped in her tracks in shock. She recovered and kept up the stairs.

“You have a room here?”

“Of course I do. We lived here all summer.”

“You didn’t stay with your parents?” Bella reached the second floor, finding Muddy paused at the head of the stairs, looking upset.

"No,” Muddy told her. She studied Bella briefly. “Why does the house shake like that when you enter?”

Bella grimaced. “It’s acknowledged me as heir to the Blacks. I think that might be why.”

“Heir?” Muddy blanched. “But Sirius…” she trailed off, looking curiously at Bella. “Okay. I didn’t know you were that close to - to the family -”

“There aren’t many of us left,” Bella admitted, and then Muddy brushed by her to rush back  _ down _ the stairs. Bella trailed her gallantly, thinking that she might be going to the family tree, and unsure as to whether she was glad for the attention.

Muddy was there when Bella caught up, looking with a furrowed brow at the bottom of the tree. She looked at Bella brightly. “That is - that is really  _ nice, _ Bella.”

“Didn’t think I had it in me?” Bella huffed a little, incapable of being actually upset by the implication. If anything, she was glowing with the compliment, however underhanded. 

“I didn’t think it was possible,” Muddy admitted. “So - I was going to go pick up some books upstairs - is that all right?”

Nymphadora appeared in the doorway with Teddy in her arms. 

“Tonks!” Muddy greeted her enthusiastically. “Sorry - I should have come by - I was just dropping -”

“You saw the tapestry,” Nymphadora said. “Pretty insane, right?”

“I wouldn’t say  _ insane.” _ Muddy frowned a little. “Hey, we should - we should catch up. Sometime soon.” The unspoken implication was,  _ Sometime that Bella isn’t here so we can talk about her. _

“Absolutely. You have no idea how bored I’ve been. Are you free tomorrow?”

Muddy’s face fell. “It’s - crazy, seventh year, I have literally mounds of -”

“No worries,” Tonks said. “Oh! I’ll visit you! What night is best?”

They arranged the details, and then Bella followed Muddy back up the stairs, pausing hesitantly at the doorway of Muddy’s room.

It had been Regulus’s room, when he lived here as a child. It was spartan, like Sirius’s; the furniture was functional but bland, and only a few items identified the place as Muddy’s. Mostly the pictures - in color, most of them not moving but staying frozen and still in place. 

“Come in,” Muddy said, and she closed the door behind Bella.

There was something uncomfortably intimate about the movement - shutting the door, the two of them alone together in a room - that made Bella’s palms sweat. She remembered earlier that day, when Muddy brought her to that forest, and Bella had told her that she wanted to savor her. Was that Muddy’s plan now? If so, she was too shy to make it clear immediately. 

“It would be so nice if you could visit me at Hogwarts,” Muddy said quietly, fiddling around at the bookcase. Bella drifted over, looking with real interest at the collection. Muddy had admitted to reading romances, but fiction did not by any means dominate her personal library. There were a few books that initially caught Bella’s eye, but she bit her tongue and focused on Muddy.

“I - yes, I’d like that,” Bella said. 

“And you won’t enlist,” Muddy told her, as if it was a question and not a command.

“Not - not if you think I should not.” She bit her lip, feeling unaccountably frustrated.

“Harry says it will help your case with the Wizengamot.”

“If killing the Dark Lord doesn’t send me home free, I can’t imagine that anything will help my case,” Bella said, trying not to remember the creeping feeling of Him watching her. Lucius could easily be wrong. Dumbledore could have been off on the number of Horcruxes by just one count, and it could all be happening again. Bella would be the first victim. She’d die without them ever suspecting that it was Him, risen again. 

“He says the problem would be that you  _ don’t  _ enlist, and not that you do.”

Bella turned abruptly away from Muddy and looked at the desk, the pictures pasted to the wall. Two people with gray hair dominated the scenes, although Potter and Weasel made frequent appearances as well. “Your parents?” she asked Muddy.

“Yes,” Muddy said. She wrapped her arms around Bella’s back, putting her face against Bella’s shoulder. She was very short, Bella thought to herself. Short indeed. Her Mudblood pet. She turned in Muddy’s arms and brought their lips together.

It was intended as nothing more than a distraction from the thought of her own trial and the impending need to decide what to do about the war, but it did not stay that way for long. Muddy was so warm. Her lips were so - so delectable, so fresh, like peaches or strawberries. Bella’s jaw ached suddenly with the sweetness. Her limbs were weak. Muddy seemed to sense Bella’s yielding, because she clutched harder, pushing forward, escalating the kiss again.

It was Muddy this time that broke away, though. “I have to head back.”

“Right,” Bella agreed without thinking. “Yes. You should.” 

Muddy led Bella to the bed and sat there, and Bella hesitated before following. It would be easy, she thought, to simply push Muddy down and hold her there. It wasn’t as if they’d never held each other in bed, but it had only happened in Mungo’s. That was what she wanted - more than the kisses, to hold Muddy for a long time, and whisper sweet promises to her. She looked at Muddy, and she could imagine that Muddy was thinking the same thing. They were both shy.

Muddy licked her lips. “It isn’t as if anything we do will - would make us closer than we already are,” she observed. “You’re my soulmate. Whatever we do together could not be - be any more important than that.”

“You know that isn’t true.” Bella sighed. “Each thing we do - every moment we spend together - it makes the bond stronger. When we first met it meant nothing at all.”

“It meant that you could not hurt me, which is not nothing, Bella.” Muddy rubbed her forearm unconsciously, as if imagining something unpleasant. “And I think I disagree with you. Like I said in my letter.”

Bella breathed deeply. “You said you loved me.” She could not elaborate, and silently begged Muddy to.

“Yeah,” Muddy said finally. “I do.” She looked sidelong at Bella, and Bella realized that this was the moment when she was expected to say the same.

Instead, emboldened by the verbal admission of those words, written almost as an aside in the letter, she said, “I would like you to stay another hour, if you can, and - will you hold me, as you did at St. Mungo’s?” The boldness faded - when she’d said the words she was shy again, a schoolgirl with a crush, no fearsome Death Eater.

“Yes, Bella,” Muddy breathed, and Bella sank into her arms. They kissed in the bed, and Muddy kept breaking the kisses off and breathing deeply, pressing her hips and her breasts against Bella, clutching without groping as she had in the woods. Muddy’s breath was quick in the unlit room, and the daylight through the windows dwindled as they navigated their way through the kisses and the clutches and the sensation of being bound ever more tightly together with each slight movement of one into another. Muddy’s body was filled with repressed energy, a focused brilliance, and Bella kept her touches light and non-erogenous. Muddy seemed to quiver and press herself to Bella anyway. 

Finally, Muddy sighed and stilled, and then she laughed lowly. “Oh, I’m embarrassed.” Bella had only touched her back, and her rib cage, and her lips with her own. “I really - I’m really embarrassed.”

Bella shook her head and chucked. Teenagers. A young body. She imagined putting her hand down the front of Muddy’s pants, imagined that she was as wet there as her mouth was. She could play the strings of Muddy’s body, which had gone taut without much provocation at all. It would be nice, but she was not sure if it was what Muddy was aiming for here. “What do you want now?”

“Maybe just what you want,” Muddy whispered. “What you asked for.” She sighed, still smiling in the dimness. “To hold you.”

“Then that is what you shall have,” Bella told her. They kissed a little more, but mostly they were silent, and Bella breathed her lover in and wanted nothing, nothing at all more than this. 

  
  


It was Tuesday morning, and Bella was on time. 

The Headmaster’s office looked different now. It had been a hundred years of Dumbledore. It was high time for a change, Bella thought as she stepped through the Floo chimney. It was time for a woman in charge.

“Headmaster,” Bella acknowledged with a small tilt of her head. She stood straight, although she was acutely aware that she was about to be begging.

“Madam Black,” Headmaster McGonagall said, looking over her glasses, curt and stern behind her desk. “Please, sit.”

Bella cleared her throat and took the seat. 

“Well?” McGonagall said when it was clear that Bella was not planning to initiate the conversation. “You arranged this meeting. What do you have to say?”

Bella cleared her throat again. “I was hoping - I would like to request that I be granted visitation rights to - to my soulmate, who is a student here.”

McGonagall’s expression did not change. For a long time. Bella puffed up her chest and refused to be cowed by it. She remembered her time as a student, a lifetime ago. Remembered how little she’d thought of the woman after she’d decided to join the Dark Lord. Some part of McGonagall must be afraid of Bellatrix Black, although she was wandless and begging.

Finally, the older woman stood and circled the desk, looking like a predator ready to pounce. Feline, like her Animagus, but larger. Tiger-like. Terrifying. Bella sat straight-backed and stared her down. 

“Miss Granger came to me with the same request yesterday. Amazing, how the soul mark can change a person.”

Bella quirked her lip. “Her, or me?”

“I was mainly thinking of yourself. You turned on Lord Voldemort.” Bella shuddered a little. She wondered why she couldn’t feel the unwelcome observation, the scry, here. Perhaps Hogwarts protected her from it, as Grimmauld did. “Don’t make that face, Ms. Black,” McGonagall scolded. “You freed this world of him, aided by Potter and his friends. You did it for her.”

It wasn’t true, not really. But in this case it would only help Bella to lie. She shugged as if to say, “Sure.”

“Don’t belittle that. You made the final decision. You struck him down, and saved us all. And I can’t deny that it - that such an action deserves some recognition.” Bella’s heart sank. Some recognition. That wasn’t freedom to access Hogwarts. It was a placard, a medal, a blasted  _ trophy. _ Nothing of use to Bella. 

But looking closer, Bella could see that the rims of the old professor’s eyes were red. She meant it.

“Thanks,” Bella said shortly. “It’s just that it’s hard for her to leave campus and visit. I won’t come more than once a week, if that’s what you need. And I’m happy with any restrictions you’d like to place. I’d just like - you know…”

“I have been considering Miss Granger’s request,” McGonagall said slowly. “At first, I thought it was impossible. However.” She circled back around the desk and sat down behind it. “You realize that it was quite a disastrous summer, for all involved. Rebuilding Hogwarts alone has - it is still a work in progress. Replacing the Defense Against the Dark Arts position - you can imagine. And I am sorry to say, but the Transfiguration professor we engaged last year was sadly unsuited. I did not replace him. I thought I could be both headmaster and professor at once. It is not working.”

“Really?” Bella couldn’t help the drawl. She felt the tables suddenly turning in her favor. She hadn’t even needed to say anything.

“Now,” McGonagall said sternly. “I am in no way suggesting that  _ you _ would be suitable for that role. But - you asked for access to Hogwarts, and I’ll - as they say, I’ll do you better.” She took a deep breath, seeming to steel herself. “The students need a tutor, and I do not have time for office hours. We are prepared to offer you a temporary position as the transfiguration tutor to fill in my office hours. You’ll tutor all the students, but pay particular attention to the fifth and seventh year students. I am afraid that they might suffer, and the Wizarding Examinations Authority has unfortunately made it clear that they will not make exceptions for extraordinary circumstances.”

Bella turned the idea over in her mind, although she’d already decided. “I’ll get a wand,” she declared, and then she stood up as if to forestall any protest from the losing quarter.

“You will need one, but every session will be supervised, and you will return the wand at the end.”

Bella waved her hand dismissively. “I’ll consider the - the request, Headmaster. Give me a little time to decide.” She marched to the fireplace.

“You won’t be able to enlist, if you take the offer,” McGonagall called after her. “You realize that the war and this position are not mutually compatible.”

Bella tossed a grin over her shoulder. “And you and Mu -  _ Hermione _ must be much greater friends than I ever thought, Professor. What will the school board think?”

“The Board does not have ultimate deciding power over temporary hires,” McGonagall said firmly, a rehearsed line. “As I have the ultimate power to determine whether this arrangement is actually suitable. I retain the right to terminate the arrangement at any time.”

“Well,” Bella sighed, and turned with a flourish back to the woman. “I must do brush up on my NEWT-level transfiguration studies, shan’t I?” She Floo-ed away before McGonagall could come up with a worthy repartee. 

  
  



	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my new beta, DelphiBlack_Granger/Erazon. Her help in disentangling the increasing and unnecessary complexity of this story has been invaluable to me. 
> 
> This is a longer update than usual. Hope you all enjoy & Happy Holidays!
> 
> A disclaimer: I have no personal knowledge of the Middle East and this story is not meant to reflect the actual, real world in any way. My intention is not to be culturally insensitive and if I am inadvertently so, please do speak up and let me know so that I can learn to be better.
> 
> Oops! Also, upped the rating to Explicit.

Bellatrix could not help herself. She was excited by McGonagall's offer. She’d wanted a challenge, and she could not deny that she had enjoyed her time at school - most of it, at least. She hated the busywork, but as a tutor she would not be writing essays. It would be practical magic, _ transfiguration, _ which had after all been her favorite and best subject. 

It also amused her to have one up on McGonagall. Muddy must have pulled hard for her; McGonagall had snapped like a bough in the wind. True, she could see why having Bella on as a tutor at Hogwarts would be both better and worse than giving her free access to one of its students. It would be a different battleground - not whether McGonagall was threatening the chastity of one of her seventh years for no obvious reason except that they’d asked, but instead whether Bella was qualified and appropriate as a tutor. Qualified was easy - Bellatrix Black was no slouch. Appropriate, though… time would only tell. 

Andy brought her to Diagon Alley the next day, and Bella went to that same bookshop that Muddy had patronized during their weekend excursion. She spent enough on books that Andy actually began grumbling. “Don’t you have a vault at Gringotts?” she asked Bella.

“It’s frozen,” Bella told her. “Part of the investigation of my villainy. Anyway, don’t you need to oversee my every move? What if I go off and buy - say a wand? Same with the old Black Manor. You don’t want me to go back home, because otherwise I am safely leashed. Perhaps I have a magical artifact that would benefit me. You can’t look away for a moment, or you’ll be blamed when I run amok.” 

“Don’t try that with me,” Andy threatened. 

Bella laughed at her, happy to feel the weight of the books in her bag, excited to rip through them. It was the seventh-year book list, plus a few more advanced texts that the students would have access to through the Hogwarts library. “You’re lulled into complacency. It’s all part of my plan.”

“Plan for what? Making me miserable for your own amusement? Because Bella, what else could you possibly actually want?”

“That’s for me to know, and you to find out.” There was no nefarious plot, of course, but Bella couldn't pass up the opportunity to taunt Andy a little bit. It was harmless, after all. Andy seemed to know it, and the game just annoyed and did not incense her, which delighted Bella.

Thinking of her manor made her a little forlorn, though. She missed it - missed home, missed the convenience of Olena and Yat, her houselves. She had two spare wands there. True, she’d spent little time in her childhood home since being released from Azkaban, and the time she’d spent there was never restful. But it was hers. The Dark Lord had never set foot there. It had sat cold and abandoned while Bella was in Azkaban, and waited for her to reclaim it once she'd been released. Sirius's room was nice enough, but the idea of gainful employment opened up the possibility of returning home, and Bella could not help but imagine it. Maybe not immediately, but soon. When Muddy left school - maybe by that time, she'd be allowed back into the manor, and then, perhaps - they could… Bella's sense of decorum did not allow her to finish the thought, but her heart trilled in excitement at the unformed concept of it. 

An unwelcome letter from Kingsley Shacklebolt was waiting for her in Nymphadora's hands when they arrived back at Grimmauld. Bella was to present herself back at the Ministry, bright and early tomorrow morning. Bella brought a bottle of wine up with her to her room and flipped through the books she'd purchased as she became increasingly drunk. Finally, the words blurred before her eyes so badly that she had to stop trying. She lay in bed and tried to still the spinning of the room, thinking that she hadn't had dinner and didn't want any. Finally, she went to the toilet and threw up half of the vile stuff, and then she went to bed.

Andy woke her in the morning, and she layered on deep lines of mascara before Floo-ing to the Ministry. Her head beat brutally, and she wished for something to dull the brightness of the lights at the entry chamber. 

Down to the bowels she went, bitter. The lights dimmed as the dizzying lift ride brought Bella and the infernal flapping interdepartmental memos above her to the correct location. She received not a few suspicious looks; she hadn't even thought to disguise her appearance this morning, and thought to herself that they must be getting an eyeful of her latest corset, delivered yesterday. Or, more chilling, that they were aware that she was wandless, and working through whether they hated her enough to kill her then and there. 

If they did, she'd have enough warning in these tight quarters to bat their wands out of their hands before they pronounced the Killing Curse, as she had during that first assassination attempt in Diagon Alley. She pressed her back into the corner of the lift, gripping at the flimsy handrail behind her, and watched every passenger with hostility that she did not try to disguise. 

Finally, the lift door opened to the Auror offices in the ministry. Bella had the feeling that she was late, although there were no clocks to check. The gathered Aurors fell silent when she emerged from the lift, and Kingsley went to her and ushered her through the crowd to a private room with a table and a few chairs. It was otherwise barren, and unpleasantly reminded Bella of an interrogation chamber. 

He sat with her at the table and offered her a drink. "Coffee," Bella croaked, unwisely. Truly she was thirsty, but mostly she wanted to go back to Grimmauld and sleep the rest of the wine out of her head. 

"The first strike team is ready to go," Shacklebolt told her, cutting mercifully to the chase. 

Bella sat back in the chair and folded her arms. "I am not volunteering," she told him wearily. "I'll take my chances with the Wizengamot."

He studied her briefly. "I can't say I'm not disappointed, Bellatrix," he told her slowly. "Does this have anything to do with - does Miss Granger -"

"Don't go and try to convince her, Kingsley," she told him shortly. "I've made my choice. And I've been offered a possible alternative - a position at Hogwarts, as a tutor."

"Impossible," Shacklebolt sputtered, but he put his elbows on the table and folded his hands, hiding his face in them. He paused for a long moment in that pose, and then he dropped his hands and she could see exhaustion written on his face. "I suppose I am not as surprised as perhaps I should be," he admitted finally. "Hogwarts. Well, how about this - how about you having it both ways? You can't be starting this week at Hogwarts, can you? Will you go with my first strike team for a few days at least - to acclimate them? The Malfoys insist that you have extensive experience in Afghanistan."

"I do," Bella told him, drawing out the syllables. "That is where the Dark Lord sent me to uncover the secret of the Horcrux."

"Truly?" Shacklebolt seemed genuinely surprised. "Then you knew about the Horcruxes."

"Of course I knew about them," she snapped at him. The lingering foulness of the old wine and the taste of the coffee set her teeth on edge. "I was His most valued servant. His most valuable asset. You cannot imagine what the Dark Lord had from me -"

"Enough," Shacklebolt interrupted. "Are you not here, cooperating, with the hope that I will be a witness on your behalf? This lunacy will not help _ that _ cause."

Bella glared at him, and then turned her head away, studying the blank wall. 

"The team leaves in an hour. Make your choice, send your letters if you need to. Pick out your wand."

A wand. Bellatrix brightened at the thought, and Shacklebolt caught the look and almost smiled. "That's right. We have quite a few here, all unclaimed and unowned. I would be surprised if one does not fancy you."

Bella scowled at him, and he left her there in the room to consider it. 

What a whirlwind these past few days had been. Shacklebolt hadn't offered her much incentive, except the idea that she wouldn't have to stay for more than a few days. Was that enough for her? She was not _ opposed. _ But wasn't she supposed to involve Muddy in decisions like this? Hadn't Muddy bade her _ not _ to go? 

She didn't have time to consult her. Truly, it wouldn't be an impediment. Muddy had only promised to meet her at Grimmauld the next Saturday morning. And it was Thursday today, which left the rest of today and a hopefully hangover-free Friday to play in Afghanistan. 

It must have been her foul mood, but for the first time a hint of true bitterness entered her chest. Surely, if Muddy felt as she said she did - surely she could spare more than just a single day per week for Bella? She took her schooling seriously, despite the bizarre fact that she had threatened to quit if Bella went to war. Was it just a bluff? It hadn't seemed like one. But either way, did she really need six nights a week at Hogwarts with no time at all for Bella herself except for Saturdays? That seemed… ludicrous. It was unfair. It was a lot to ask of Bellatrix, to be always waiting.

Bella could go with the Aurors and not mention anything about it to Muddy. They'd talk Saturday, and Bella would begin the experiment at Hogwarts next week, and in a month or two Bella would mention that she'd gone and helped the Aurors like a hero. By that time everything would be more settled, and Muddy could not possibly cause too much of a fuss. After all, it was no inconvenience to her personally. 

Bella had the sensation of freedom, and reveled in it. She sent just two letters - one to Andy, and one to McGonagall.

  
  


They reached the first village before sundown, and Bella lit up the sky with fire. Her Auror companions shouted after her about the Statute, like idiots. She supposed she should have told them a bit more than she had, which was to follow her and keep their heads.

The firestorm lit up the sky, anyway, and then she waited. It took just a few minutes for a man to come stumbling out of one of the cottages, waving his arms.

She strode to him, putting her newly-gotten wand against her throat. The words came out in Pashto, the local language. “We are not here to cause trouble. We need information. Are you a wizard?”

The man looked at her with fear in his eyes. Perhaps he had heard stories about her visit here twenty years ago. Or perhaps it was the fire that made him afraid.

He spoke, though. “No, madam, I am not. I am just the spokesperson/mayor.” The word came out of his lips as one sound, but the translation spell made the two in Bella’s head. “If you are looking for wizards, the place that they live is to the south. One day’s walk from here.”

Bella nodded shortly and thanked him. “The Taliban. We are in their territory. Do these wizards work for the militia?”

The man’s eyes darkened, and Bella conjured a thick wad of Muggle bills and pressed them into his hands, standing close. He avoided her gaze, mumbling something.

“Speak up, man. Do these wizards work for the Taliban? Or Al Qaeda? And if they do not - who does? Is there an opposition of wizards against the Taliban and the terrorists?”

The man shook his head without speaking, and Bella fought down the urge to Crucio him. He’d given her something. Who really cared what this one man thought was happening? Not even a wizard. 

Bella huffed and then strode back to the six Aurors where they waited. “David. We are Apparating twenty miles south of here. Come.”

The Auror looked down at the Portkey in his hands, the one that had brought them here and that had the password to return them. He looked up at the sky, the dwindling sun, the sand dunes, the shapes of the cottages, alien and familiar at once. He opened his mouth with hesitation, and she Disapparated away before he had the chance to form his thoughts into words. 

They all landed within a mile of each other, and Bella took her broom skyward and shot sparks to draw the group back together. They joined her in the air. She could feel their silent disapproval, and thought to herself that she should probably explain her plan before they turned on her. 

They landed in a flock of black cloaks a few hundred yards from the encampment. It was briefly reminiscent of her time leading squads of Death Eaters. Bella hadn't tried the cloud flying trick since the Dark Lord's death, and was not tempted to. It had always been a bad feeling - not a familiar, natural magic, but something made for terror. She did not miss it. She didn't miss much of that time, actually, although _ this _ passed for fun.

Bella again addressed David, who was the true unit leader. "We're taking their children. It is a common wartime strategy in these deserts. We will house them and clothe them, even school them if the Ministry allows it. It will be our guarantee of non-intervention from them for as long as this Muggle war lasts. And you will just need to replicate the strategy in the rest of the wizarding villages."

Looking behind David, it was truly more a camp than a village. She could see that these wizards must be nomads. It wasn't true of all of them - or it hadn't been twenty years ago. She was not sure if anything had changed.

David finally spoke. He had doe-like blue eyes and a muscular frame padded with fat. He'd look brutish but for those eyes, which could lull one into believing that he was innocent. Perhaps he was. 

"You didn't wipe any of the Muggles' memories at that other camp, and their leader knew what you meant when you asked for wizards. I had heard that there was no enforcing agency responsible for the Statute here, but…"

He trailed off, questioning. 

Bella indulged him. "The Statute doesn't exist here. The tribal magic is not allowed under their religion, and wizards are reviled. They live in their own, separate townships, and fight their own wars separate from those of the Muggles. But the Muggles know of them, and exclude them as best they can. That was how things were twenty years ago."

The gathered Aurors murmured among themselves. 

"It is not ethical to take their children," a woman said. She could be Nymphadora's long-lost sister if that wasn't impossible, with an upturned nose and hair that was so blonde it might have been white in the darkness. Perhaps a relative of Tonks' - no, clearly not, as he was Muggle-born. 

"It's just what they do," Bella snapped at her. "And it works. Do you want a solution that works, or not?"

"You should have told Shacklebolt your plan so that we could get his approval." It was doe-eyed David again.

"One village of a dozen is just a testing-ground," Bella argued. "We snatch them now, warn the parents, fight if we have to. Bring the kids with us back to Britain, and get approval later. If Shacklebolt doesn't like it, we can just send them back home and tell them it was a threat."

David sighed. "There is a reason we asked for her help," he told the rest. 

"This isn't a bloody democracy," Bella told him crisply. "Give your order."

  
  


Bella was lazing in Sirius's room, _ Transfiguration of the Elements _ stacked on top of _ Ages Past: The Secrets of Bewarmy the Great _ beside her on the bed, when Muddy burst through the door. It was earlier than Bella had expected her; the letter from yesterday had said 10am Saturday morning.

Bella looked up at her as she slammed the door closed and wandlessly tossed the books to the floor. "Bellatrix," she began. 

That tone meant nothing but trouble. Bella groaned and pushed her feet against the wall, letting her head fall back so that the door was upside-down in her vision. "You're early." 

"You went to war," Muddy said, her voice betraying tears. 

"Not really," Bella began, and Muddy stomped across the room and grabbed something on the desk. 

"It reeks in here," Muddy said. Bella looked up to see her disappear the pack of cigarettes. It was mostly empty anyway. "The Prophet ran a story. _ Children, _ Bella? I thought you'd changed."

Bella sat up heavily and put her elbows on her knees, squinting up at Muddy. "It's what they do. We have to play by their rules."

Muddy went to her and grabbed both shoulders as if to shake her, and Bella stood up, looming suddenly over Muddy. She put her hands on Muddy's waist to make the pose into an embrace, and Muddy breathed quickly and snatched her own hands away.

Bella let her retreat, and she began pacing. "The article in the Prophet said we don't even know if they would have fought against the United States anyway."

"Even if they aren't now, maybe they would have. It's just a precaution, to protect the American Muggles."

"If they hadn't wanted to, I'm sure they do now!" Muddy huffed and wiped her eyes. "And you didn't tell me anything! In your letters this week."

"It was a - a bit last-minute. I was planning to tell you today."

_ "Liar," _ Muddy snarled. "Jesus Christ, you are a perpetual liar and I _ hate _ lies. An Auror died." 

"And four died the day we went to flush out those last Death Eaters, didn't they? You weren't holding me accountable then."

"You said you _ wouldn't go." _ Muddy was still teary-eyed, and Bella put up her hands and went to sit back at her bed. She wasn't sure what else she could say. Maybe she was in the wrong, but it didn't feel like she was. Muddy was to be her compass now, but she hadn't asked Muddy and she supposed that this was the consequence.

"I should have consulted you," Bella told her softly. "I knew that, but there was no time."

"You should have held by what you promised, is what you should have done," Muddy told her sharply. She dragged Bella back upright by the cuff of her shirt, and Bella stood. Muddy licked her lips and surveyed her. Bella was glad she'd changed into day clothes early. A black blouse, the newest corset which she'd repaired after her jaunt down south, those tight pants that were fashionable now. Muddy seemed to like the outfit, and Bella tried a smile. 

Muddy entangled her fingers in Bella's hair, at the back of her neck, and Bella thought she'd have a kiss. Instead, Muddy tightened her grip in Bella's hair and placed her other hand on her waist, nipping gently at Bella's exposed throat. Bella could not help a surprised exhalation. 

"I am so mad at you," Muddy whispered. 

Bella grinned over her shoulder. "Doesn't seem like you are."

"I'll show you how mad I am," Muddy told her huffily, and then her hands dropped to the back of Bella's corset, feeling at the ties. 

Bella turned around in her arms to make the task easier, wondering. It wasn't unwelcome, this kind of attention. Muddy's hands fumbled at the ties at her back, and the sensation was soft and somehow soothing. Not the aggressive touch of before, but somehow sweet. Bella wondered how many articles of clothing Muddy would remove before deciding that she'd re-exerted her power sufficiently. The thought soothed the sudden burning sensation between her legs - to remember that this was no offer of sex, and just a game.

Finally, the ties loosened, and Bella pulled the corset down and stepped out of it, turning in Muddy's arms. Muddy's face was stormy, but something in Bella's expression caught her attention, and the cloud lifted. "You like this," Muddy said wonderingly. 

"I like _ you," _ Bella corrected, tapping her forefinger on Muddy's nose. "And anything you care to do to me." Despite her flippancy, the words caught deep in her belly, fluttering there, caged butterflies. Worse, it was true, those words that might have been lifted from the blood traitor romance Bella had read last week. Bella could not muster in herself any sense of shame at it. Had she always been capable of such softness, in the right hands? Was it only the soul mark that did this to her, making her so pliable? She remembered what she'd thought in Mungo's, that she'd never wanted sex for anything but power before. She hadn't imagined in that moment that she'd acquiesce to sex in order to _ give up _ power, but it did not feel wrong. Not with Muddy, if that was what Muddy wanted. 

Muddy's eyes fell to the buttons of Bella's blouse, and she began to undo them. Bella stood there and watched as her small silk undershirt became visible, and then the paleness of her stomach. Finally, the blouse was undone, and Muddy's face was flushed when she looked back up at Bella. 

Bella waited for Muddy to make the next move, and when she didn't, she shrugged the overshirt off and placed Muddy's hands on her stomach. Muddy's hands were not large, but Bella was still gaining back the weight she'd lost that summer, and Muddy's hands easily covered most of her stomach. 

"Your skin is soft," Muddy observed, making circles with her thumbs. Bella was amused at how easily she'd distracted Muddy. Muddy was not angry, not anymore. All her attention was on her own hands, and Bella's skin. Bella sighed and lidded her eyes, moderating her breathing, waiting. 

Muddy's hands drifted to Bella's belt, and she unstrapped it clumsily. Bella undid the button and slithered out of the pants. _ Two to go, _ she thought to herself, not that power seemed to be on Muddy's mind now. Standing straight again, Bella looked into Hermione's eyes and thought she saw only curiosity, wonder, and some small piece of trepidation. 

Bella knew she had been beautiful, long ago. Even her mark did not stop consistently unwelcome attention from the less-attractive sex. It had saved her from needing to heed any of it, but she knew how to use her assets when she had to. With age, Bella's beauty had become gaunt. She knew that her ribs were visible, unhealthily. But age hadn't affected her body as much as it had her face, and she was not self-conscious as Muddy's eyes roamed over her. 

"You won't stop smiling," Muddy said when she finally met Bella's gaze. Bella hadn't realized it, of course, but Muddy was not so solemn, either. 

"I can't help that I'm happy," Bella told her. 

"What do you imagine will happen next?" Muddy whispered. 

"I imagine that you could kiss me, if you wished to," Bella said, smirking. 

"What if I wanted more?" Muddy bit her lip, as if regretting the words as she said them.

"Then I imagine we could have a conversation about that," Bella told her, feeling the flirtatious smile still lingering on her lips. 

"You said I could do what I wanted with you," Hermione said, her voice gaining strength. She pressed her hand on Bella's shoulder, and Bella backed up into the bed. Hermione kept pushing, and Bella fell back into the mattress, catching herself before hitting her head against the wall. Hermione climbed up to straddle her hips, and Bella's hands settled around her waist. 

"That is not precisely what -" Bella's voice failed her as Muddy pressed herself down firmly against Bella's groin. Bella pressed back up without thinking, holding her hips more tightly, and then Muddy undulated again, more fiercely. Her hand rested on Bella's stomach, the other against the wall behind Bella. 

"You have no idea the dreams I've been having," Muddy gasped. 

"Would you like me to be rougher?" Bella asked her, halfway wishing for a _ yes. _

Muddy stilled herself at that, looking down with a furrowed brow. "I - no." She pushed off the wall, sitting up straight. The position was just only slightly less suggestive than the last. 

Bella growled, "What do you want, then, lover?" Her mind flashed back to Azkaban, and she had a flash of what she'd done with the third woman in this position. She imagined sliding slowly inside, imagined the freedom of letting the woman take control of the pace. But no - she'd need to be much more explicit with Muddy to do that transformation, as easy as it had become for her. 

Confusion had overtaken Muddy as Bella contemplated the vile thing that she'd done with those women. Bella put her hand up, traced Muddy's cheek, the slight angle of her cheekbone. 

"I do not want you to do anything with me that you regret," Bella whispered. "If you are at all uncertain -"

"I'm not." Muddy pressed down again. "I know what I want."

Bella pulled Muddy's sweater up slightly, and Muddy brought it the rest of the way up and off her. Muddy was beautiful, which was no surprise. Bella had an idea of what she'd look like; the outline of her body was clear through the tight clothing she wore. Bella's hands went up to Muddy's breasts and she paused there until Muddy lowered herself down and into the touch.

Bella squeezed briefly, one hand flitting around to the clasp on the back, and Muddy pushed up and unfastened her bra, the motion bringing her hot core back against Bella's groin. Bella gave into it again. This time her vision was hazy, and Muddy's breasts were in full view. Bella raised her head to nuzzle the closest breast, grinding her hips forward, imagining that the warmness against her was wetness and that she could easily slip inside. Hermione responded equally, and together they made a motion like waves, not as much aggressive as it was inexorable, an instinctive motion that hinted at what might come next. 

Bella found Hermione's nipple with her lips and bit down, steading Hermione's rhythm, focusing both their attention at that point of meeting. _ This _ was something Bella had learned to do, not that it was difficult, and she brought one hand around to hold Hermione's breast. The other settled firmly on her bottom, and then she turned them tidily around so that Hermione was on her back, her head on the pillow that had seen such abuse from Bella's boots. 

Muddy made a strangled sound and her leg wrapped around Bella's hips, head tossed back and neck on the offer. Bella pushed up, finding purchase on the blanket, pulling Muddy's face down, and finally kissed her.

It had been a long week of remembering this, and she fell into the motion of kissing more gracefully than ever. Muddy returned the kisses hungrily, pawing at Bella's body, pushing away Bella's undershirt without effort. Bella let the scrap of clothing over her shoulders and down. One_ to go, _ she thought, and for the first time this morning she felt a hint of hesitancy.

Nobody had ever touched her there. Not even in Azkaban. She'd never felt the urge to let anyone have their way with her, but she had the feeling that to have _ her _ was Muddy's foremost intention. Still, Muddy was below her, and their naked bodies met in sleek satisfaction. Bella's breasts unleashed easily overwhelmed Muddy's, and Muddy broke their kiss to look down at the jumble. 

"Wow," Hermione said. Her hands cupped Bella's breasts on either side, and she looked up at Bella with wide eyes. 

Bella's voice grated in her throat. "Ready to have that talk, now?" 

"I told you that I don't think anything could ever bring us closer than we already are."

"But last week, you must have noticed that it wasn't true?"

Muddy laughed. The daylight had penetrated the London gloom, and a ray of sunshine painted their bodies, a sideways splash that seemed to bless them as they lay entangled. 

"What, because I jacked off hard like an idiot?" 

Bella couldn't help but dislike the turn of phrase. "Because we were closer when you left."

"Because I trust you more every day," Muddy admitted in a rush. "And every letter you write makes it worse."

"Not better?" Bella asked her, feeling miffed. 

"That supposes that I should trust you at all." Muddy seemed to straighten, looking at Bella closely, ignoring the satisfaction of bodies meeting. 

"I want nothing but you," Bella told her truthfully. 

"You're too damn charming," Hermione cursed, and then she pulled her down again to kiss her.

Somehow, slowly, she maneuvered her body against Bella's so that Bella was trapped against the wall, and Bella's legs open with one jean-clad thigh between them. Bella wanted to close her legs, but Muddy did not yield to her nudging. Despite herself, Muddy's insistent pressing actually made Bella like the position better, and then Muddy trailed her hand down between them and played with the top of Bella's panties. 

_ One to go, _Bella thought, and she smiled at Muddy's inquisitive look. 

"Try it out, pet," Bella purred. 

Muddy's hands shook as she pulled the panties down. Bella thought for the first time that her own hip bones were too prominent, but Muddy traced her hand back up Bella's thigh so reverently that the thought left her mind as if by a spell. Muddy propped herself up on one elbow and ended the tracing at the apex of Bella's thighs, and Bella closed her eyes and reminded herself that Muddy could never hurt her. 

"Is this what you want?" Muddy asked her, hesitantly. The first time she'd asked that. 

"I don't know," Bella told her. "But I might," she added, opening back up her eyes. 

"How am I supposed to take that?" Hermione asked with a hint of frustration. 

"We should just try," Bella told her, smiling despite her fear.

Hermione dipped her fingers into Bella's essence, and they both stilled, acclimating. Hermione moved her fingers slowly, testing, and Bella's hips jerked without her intent. Hermione moaned and her body seemed to collapse, settling beside Bella's, nudging her to lay on her side. Hermione's arm cradled Bella's stomach, around her hip, and Bella kept her leg up, welcoming, even as she pressed her back against Hermione's front. 

Hermione's touch became more intentional as her hips ground against Bella's. Bella turned slightly around and Muddy's other arm wrapped around and under her, gripping her left breast with one insufficient palm. Bella captured her lips as she turned, and then Muddy's finger slipped slightly inside and they both stilled.

"Only you," Bella whispered. 

"You," Muddy returned, and then her hand moved with intention. Bella's hips twitched in to the touch, at first briefly, and then harder, and Muddy's hips escalated the motion of their bodies together.

Bella was not unfamiliar with the sensation of climax, but this felt very different. It was a gradual, pleasurable building, and Bella was so aware of her lover's increasing passion that her own sensation was eclipsed by it. Instead it felt like their two bodies were merging into one, which Bella would never have wanted except that this was Hermione, inside her and all around her, and moaning slightly into her ear. 

Hermione's hips stilled first, and then her hand pressed deeper and curled and Bella tightened her grip on Hermione's thigh behind her and gave in. When it was done, they separated their sweaty bodies and laughed together, kissing lightly. Bella saw the ray of sunlight paint her own sex and Hermione's leg together, and she rested her forehead against her lover's and thought to herself that this was it_ . _


	10. Chapter 10

It was a long, lazy moment before Bellatrix was able to stir herself into something resembling coherence. "You must have practiced quite a lot to be so good," she murmured. A spike of ice formed in her chest and she immediately regretted the probing words. 

Hermione shrugged. Her hair was tossed over one shoulder, and she propped herself up to look down at Bella. The hand that held Bella's wetness was curled on Bella's stomach, and with the other she traced a lazy pattern on Bella's arm. She was unspeakably beautiful. 

"Only with myself," Hermione told her. She leaned down and kissed Bella's stomach lightly, working up her torso with an obvious destination in mind. 

"That was my first time," Bella told her, voice wavering. "I thought you should know."

"And do you feel closer than we ever have been?" Hermione mumbled against her skin, teasing. Her lips were featherlight and tickled Bella. 

Bella considered the question. "I feel -" Bella's voice cut off as Hermione reached her nipple, and they were silent again. There was something about the way Hermione moved, deliberately but with an underlying drive that could overwhelm both their bodies. When Bella bit Hermione's nipple, she had dictated their pace. Now, Hermione moaned slightly and readjusted their bodies so that their legs were aligned, sucking and nipping with growing hunger. Bella's core ached again, insatiable. "Good," she finished finally, stupidly. 

"And did that qualify as _ savoring?" _ Hermione asked her archly, pulling away, scooting up in the bed to look Bella in the eye. Her look held an unmistakable challenge in it. 

"Not yet," Bella growled. "But we have all day, don't we?" 

Hermione's brow crinkled slightly as she considered that - considered Bella's hands, which had come to rest on her jean-clad hips. 

"This is _ my _ day," she told Bella. "To have you. In whatever ways I wish." It would be erotic - teasing - but Bella could read something deeper in her eye, some fear. 

Bella murmured comfortingly, stretching out like a cat, pressing her body contentedly against Hermione's. "I am yours to have," she told her, and never put her hands so close to the waistline of Muddy's pants again except to pull her closer. Muddy did have the chance to prove that she'd done research - if not practical, at least theoretical - on the many positions and methods of lesbian orgasm that day. 

They had needed to break around noon. Andy was out of the house, and Bella was fairly useless in the kitchen, but there were ingredients for cold cut sandwiches at least. Muddy was more interested in Bella than the food. She refused to let more than a foot stand between them. It seemed that she was a master of lingering touches. Bella was a disaster herself, already sore and aching, and she kissed Muddy against the counter, pressing her body close, relishing the brief moment of having her and not the other way around.

It was gone again the moment Bella's door shut behind them. Hermione was insistent, receptive only to the point of allowing Bella input into the way their bodies fit together. Somehow, Bella was even wetter after they'd eaten, which Muddy discovered promptly. She could leave her finger inside Bella and watch Bella grind with increasing need, contacting her clit lightly, eyes hooded and face unreadable. She could put Bella's knees against her shoulders and immobilize Bella completely, driving into her deeply, making Bella incapable of forming a thought except to think this must be _ everything. _Everything, Bella whispered to her, slick with sweat and the juices Muddy pulled from underneath those protective jeans to trace over her skin, to coat her own fingers as she penetrated Bella once again after she'd licked all the wetness away with her clever Mudblood tongue. Bella dove for her fingers the second time she did that, deep-throating her fingers, coming undone at the look her lover gave her at her eagerness. She tasted divine. Bella wanted more.

"Do you want to watch?" Muddy asked Bella, and Bella put her own hands behind her back as Muddy straddled her, still wearing those jeans, and rode her own fingers to completion. Bella remembered that it was her own essence caked on Muddy's fingers, and ground upwards helplessly. Muddy was quick; Bella was slow. Bella lost track of the number and length of climaxes that they'd had, at the same time and one-off, but she thought that Muddy had her beat. Muddy's face and chest were flushed, and she seemed to take only a moment to grind her hips before she was twitching and sighing. It was unfair; it was obscene. Bella could only imagine the bounty between her legs. When Hermione scooped it out and slid her essence into Bella, Bella imagined putting her hand between Muddy's legs and at least feeling her - she knew she'd slide inside, how could she not? Yet even this was far more than Bella ever deserved. 

She had the sensation of timelessness. This would not last - it could not, their bodies wouldn't hold out, but moreover it _ would _ not. Although it was timeless, there could never be time enough. Bella did not know what to do except to hold on tighter, to kiss more deeply. She could not differentiate between her own desire and Hermione's, but thought that her own must have run dry long ago and been happy for rest, for silence, for that other kind of intimacy they had discovered together at Mungo's. That didn't matter, when Hermione's need was so overwhelming and unlimited. It made her more afraid of the end, that Muddy would be so unwilling to stop. It made the end matter more - made Bella think that after Muddy left this room, she would not have this again. _ This _ \- whatever it was.

She asked Muddy. "Is this love?"

Muddy looked at her for a long time and didn't answer. It reminded Bella of the long and sorrowful looks she'd been given at Mungo's. She thought in panic that this was just the same as Mungo's again. That Muddy would not admit to loving her again. That this was the end, and not a beginning.

It brought her to exhausted tears. Muddy traced them with her fingertips, kissed them off her cheeks, murmured wordlessly. Just like Mungo's, because Bella had cried then, too. She was naked now, and raw. Muddy wrapped her arms around Bella's shoulders and let Bella bury her face in her breasts. She could taste salt there. 

"You told me you loved me," Bella whispered brokenly. 

"I do," Muddy said, seeming reluctant. "Only you, Bella. I told you that, too. Why are you crying?"

"I'm tired." It was the simplest part of it to admit to. 

Muddy laughed a little. "You could have told me earlier," she said, and Bella held her closer, breathing the moment of temporary hope. 

"This is sex," Muddy said finally, quietly. "Bonded sex. Sex with your soul mate. There is nothing that could ever be more significant than that, Bella. Are you imagining that it is something else?"

"Love," Bella whispered, and Muddy was silent, running her hands down Bella's body. Finally she nudged Bella's face up and kissed her gently, delicately. 

"Then that is what it is," Muddy told her, as easy as that.

  
  
  


Andy knocked on Bella's door after the sun was fully departed from the sky. "Supper in ten minutes. And if Hermione would like to join us, she is very welcome."

Bella locked eyes with Muddy, who was nestled under her arm. Muddy seemed to be holding her breath.

"Uhm," Bella cleared her throat. "I'll ask her. Thank you, sister."

"All right!" Andy's voice drifted away, and then Muddy broke out in a giggling fit.

"Should have muffled our sounds," Bella muttered, knowing she was blushing and hopeful that Muddy could not see that in the darkness. 

They both dressed quickly. "Maybe one of them saw me go to the bathroom," Muddy suggested, hoping perhaps to save Bella's dignity. Bella did not respond. 

"A white shirt," Muddy remarked. "And pants. I like it." 

"Do you?" Bella said, and gave her a little twirl to show off all angles. She sobered. "Will you come to dinner? Andy might be -"

"I will," Muddy said, eyes still lingering on Bella's outfit. She looked up into Bella's eyes, something unreadable showing in her face.

"I'd rather not have to dine with them. I'd rather take you to Pegasus Wine & Dine, or somewhere nicer," Bella pouted. It was hard to think of a restaurant that wouldn't turn Muddy away at the door, but Pegasus was known for a mixed crowd. "But unfortunately I am trapped here." With no money at all, and no means of getting any, she thought, but did not say it. 

"I like Andromeda. And will Tonks come?"

"Yes," Bella confirmed regretfully. "And the horrid child as well. It will be a regular -"

"A family supper," Muddy said, smiling happily. "Do you eat with them every night?"

"Tragically, yes," Bella grumbled, and opened the door. 

Andy had opened a bottle of wine, a rarity, and she poured three glasses. Nymphadora declined tonight, probably not needing it given that their dinner guest was not a Malfoy. 

Andy asked Muddy about school, and Muddy said, "The courses are at least challenging. Especially Transfiguration and DADA. It has been a relief to go back, honestly, although Harry and Ron are having trouble transitioning back to schoolwork after the year off."

"And what will you do afterward?" 

Muddy scooted her chair in and fidgeted with the broccoli on her plate. "Harry and Ron intend to join the Aurors. Already they are tagging along on some missions."

"As you did," Bella added. She'd already finished her glass of wine and was eyeing the bottle. 

"Just the one with you," Muddy said. "I don't want to join the Aurors, but with the war coming I am wondering if I should." She shot a glance at Bella, and Bella remembered their fight this morning.

There was an uncomfortable silence. Bella wanted to remind her that she was not enlisted and did not intend to, but that wasn't a public conversation. She wished Muddy would not continue to insist that she be involved - if Bella was volunteering, it shouldn't change the girl's decisions or her life's path. At first, Bella had wondered if Muddy had said she'd quit Hogwarts to strongarm Bella into not participating, but her continued insistence on it made Bella question whether that was true. 

"I was as well," Nymphadora interjected, and Andy went off on her as Bella continued to stare at Muddy. "Honestly, _ Mother, _ if I could help - and I'm sure I can -"

"You can't leave Teddy," Andy said vehemently. 

"It shouldn't be too dangerous, not with this new -"

"Absolutely not."

_ "Fine," _Nymphadora said bitterly. "Fine, whatever you say is best, never mind what I want." She huffed and seemed to consider leaving the table.

The silence came back, and Andy broke it by saying, "Cissy's first trial hearing is Monday."

Bella looked at her in shock. Why hadn't Narcissa told her directly? 

"The trials are starting?" she said hurriedly.

"Dear Bella, they've been happening since the beginning of the month," Andy told her with an edge of consternation. 

"Oh, well…" Bella muttered. She hadn't read a Prophet since the one she'd found with Muddy's picture in it when she was at Mungo's.

"They worked through the lower levels of Snatchers and Death Eaters first," Muddy told her. "Now they're starting with the higher ups. Mrs. Malfoy will be the first, since she is not enlisting."

"And Lucius? Draco?" 

"They don't have a set schedule," Muddy told her, although it didn't answer her question. "Mal - Draco was cleared to return to school, so his should probably be an easy trial. And Lucius has insisted that he was under Imperius the entire time." Muddy rolled her eyes a bit, and Bella agreed wholeheartedly with _ that. _

"Are you a witness?"

"No, but Harry is. He'll be a witness on her behalf." Muddy seemed to search Bella's face. "I think she should have a short sentence."

"Sentence? Where?" Bella imagined her littlest sister in Azkaban and had the sudden urge to destroy the Ministry of Magic. If she'd kill Lord Voldemort for Cissy, what she wouldn't do to those Ministry twats… 

"Azkaban was never rebuilt. The dementors are being hunted down and their territory limited to the old prison island." It was Nymphadora, apparently finished with her sulking fit.

"They'll never _ stay," _Bella hissed, and Muddy looked a little taken aback by her sudden spate of aggression. "Not without being fed. That's why they set up the island to begin with!"

"Well, obviously," Muddy murmured, frowning. 

Bella's mind skipped quickly along. "Monday! What time? The Transfiguration lesson is at 10am."

"You're starting?" Muddy looked a bit shocked, and Bella grinned at her and nodded slightly. "You're attending our _ classes?" _she added, a slight note of hysteria entering her voice. 

"McGonagall said I should attend the seventh and fifth year lessons?" Muddy appeared not to be particularly pleased. In watching her face fall, Bella's voice turned the statement into a sort of question.

"The trial is in the afternoon," Andy told her, looking between them calmly. "But Bella, you must not attend it. Even if you could, it would certainly not help Cissy to have you there. You must know."

Bella growled. Muddy was displeased with her, mysteriously, and she couldn't attend her sister's own trial because she was too much of a menace. "Well, then, I suppose it does not matter," she conceded. 

She worried that Muddy would leave after dinner, but instead she followed Bella up the stairs and back to her room, where she wrapped herself around Bella and kissed her forehead and the lids of her eyes. 

"Do you want to talk -" 

"Not at all," Muddy murmured. When she palmed Bella on the outside of her pants, Bella had the somewhat late-breaking realization that Muddy was hoping for a continuation of the morning's activities. 

If anything, she was more sore now than she had been when they stopped earlier that day. She quirked an eyebrow at Muddy and said, "You are insatiable and have worn me out completely. Is this all I am good for? Because if it is, I am afraid that you may need to wait until tomorrow for it." An invitation to stay the night, couched in the slight vulnerability of admitting that she could not continue, hopefully covered by a veneer of bravado.

Luckily Muddy seemed to take the words at face value, blushing and removing her hand. "No, it's just… I guess the wine?"

"It is your young body." Bella bit her lip, thinking to herself that if it was not only her own body they could use, she'd certainly continue. She couldn't say that without pressuring Muddy. Could she?

Muddy squirmed against her and then settled into a tense hug. "I think I can wait," she told Bella.

In the morning, Bella woke to the sound of a scratching quill. Muddy was bent over Bella's desk, writing with a ferocity. She wore a borrowed nightgown of pale white, making her skin look darker by comparison. The sun caught on her hair, an unkempt heap that was barely restrained by a loose hair tie. Still, she was beautiful in that pose of utter concentration, and Bella appreciated the brief opportunity to observe her working. 

Finally, Muddy glanced over at her and startled. "How long have you been awake?" she asked.

"A while," Bella responded, stretching lazily and then sauntering over to Muddy to drape herself over the girl. "What are you doing?"

"Just a few outlines," Muddy said, fanning them out. Bella tried to take them in and was faced by a somewhat hopeless web of acronyms and abbreviated book titles. The Ancient Runes paper was utterly illegible to her. "You have the Transfiguration textbooks here? Can I use them?" 

"You never stop working," Bella muttered into Muddy's ear, and Muddy shuddered with some unspoken response, which became more clear as she turned in the chair and drew Bella down to sit in her lap. 

"You couldn't be more wrong," Muddy said, and then she proved it. 

  
  


Professor McGonagall was late to class and snappish. She forgot to introduce Bella to the seventh years for a half hour, and the introduction was short. "Bellatrix Black has been hired on a temporary basis as a tutor to all Transfiguration students. She will be taking on my office hours, Wednesday from 3 to 5 and Friday from 9 to 11."

Bella gave a half-hearted wave from the back of the class, scanning the students. Half of them turned to stare at her. This class was for all seventh-year NEWT students, just over twenty of them. All four Houses were represented, although there were only a few Slytherin and fewer Hufflepuff. Many had been tossing glances over their shoulders all class anyway. Muddy hunched her shoulders in her seat between Potter and the Weasel and didn't look back at all. Draco was the only one who waved back at her. 

It was a testament to McGonagall's intimidating teaching style that there were only muted murmurings. A few hands were raised, and McGonagall said sharply, "If you have any questions on this subject you are free to stay after class and I will discuss this matter at that time." 

The subject of the lesson was transfiguration permanency theory. Would an object remain transfigured if the caster lost concentration? Moved a sufficient distance away? Died? What of conjurations, like the Muggle money Bella had handed that man in Afghanistan last week? If the caster was sufficiently powerful, and the transfiguration considered complete, did that mean that part of the caster's magical essence was granted to the object, never to be regained? 

McGonagall presented the questions, but no answers, to the class. They reviewed the available literature in a summary fashion, and then McGonagall asked all the students to conjure a glass for water. Bella noted with interest that Muddy transfigured a glass goblet. Flashy and elaborate, given the implicit warning of the permanent loss of magic for what was intended to be a permanent conjuration. Most of the rest of the students conjured a small glass. Some of the glasses were small enough for a shot of brandy, and no more. She noted that the Weasel, and about half the other students had some trouble on their first try and had to keep making attempts before the glass solidified before them.

Each of the glasses was affixed with the name of the student, and they were all stored in a cupboard for future review.

The last ten minutes of class were for Bellatrix. McGonagall recreated the class syllabus on the board and asked the students to identify which subjects had presented them with the most challenge, and what specifically they did not understand. Bella listened carefully, despite her inclination not to. This was supposed to be her job. If there was anything that came up which she was incapable of addressing, she should prepare for it now. It was the first time McGonagall made eye contact with her the entire class session, and a slight frown etched on the old woman's face. Bella wondered why. 

Class was dismissed, and McGonagall waved Bella to the front. A few of the students left. Most stayed behind to hear what McGonagall had to say - including Muddy and her friends. Was it just Bella, or did they both sit unusually close on either side of Muddy? 

Bella marched to the front of the class and stared challengingly out at the students, feeling a bit like she was about to be made an example of. Her mind flashed to Cissy, who must be at the Ministry now. How did she fare?

She tuned in when McGonagall asked again for any questions, scanning the students' faces. 

None raised their hands. "Well, seeing as there are no questions, you are all free to leave."

The students shifted uncomfortably in their seats, and then a Ravenclaw raised her hand. 

"Frederica," McGonagall prompted. 

"I thought that Mrs. - um, Ms. Black was not allowed to - to come here," she managed. 

"An exception has been made for extraordinary circumstances. I don't expect any of you to pass your NEWTs at this stage. My hope is that with Madam Black's help, you will have at least a fighting chance." McGonagall sniffed unhappily at the lot of them, Bellatrix included. When no further questions were forthcoming, she added, "Madam Black scored an O on her Transfiguration NEWT, which is a feat that only thirty-two other Hogwarts students have ever managed."

"She's a Death Eater," someone whispered. 

Bella rolled back her left sleeve, showing a battle-scarred but mark-free arm. "There are no Death Eaters any more, boy," she snarled, realizing only afterward that perhaps she should have tried for a different tone.

"Well," McGonagall interjected. "No one is denying that she was once one of Lord Voldemort's followers. I have determined that given her actions during the Battle of Hogwarts, the merits of having her far outweigh the - the unique challenges of her past.

"However, you should all be aware that the office hours will be supervised. If you have any concerns about _ concrete and actual actions _ taken by Madam Black at any point in her time at Hogwarts, you should come directly to me." 

Bella gave McGonagall a sideways stare, and then looked at Muddy, who was bright red and avoiding her gaze by staring at McGonagall's feet. 

"Now, if there is nothing else - please, by the love of Merlin and all that is good, please leave class now."

When the students had filed out, Muddy at the head of the pack, McGonagall turned to Bella and said, "You should have taken notes at the end."

Bella shrugged. "They're all having trouble with the Life Paradox and Double-Time Draws. I will brush up on Jarl Erickson's writings on core elemental theory. Anything else?"

McGonagall performed the immense feat of appearing both pleased and frustrated. "Each one of them scored below 50% on their recent essay on invisibility."

"That's not transfiguration," Bella said, but McGonagall seemed to ignore her. 

"Except Miss Granger, who did extraordinarily well." She looked over her glasses, and Bella had the grace to blush. 

"If I wasn't supposed to _ advise _ her on schooling someone should have mentioned that to me before."

"Yes, well," McGonagall sniffed. "I hope that your tutorship will help the rest of the class as well as Miss Granger going forward."

"I doubt she'll even show," Bella muttered, mostly to herself. 

"And give up the advantage of having you here? Evidently your time with Miss Granger has not led to a full understanding of her character."

Bella glanced at the shelf that held the conjured glasses. Four had already popped out of existence. Muddy's was the largest and the most elaborate by far. 

"What on Earth does that girl have to prove?" Bella asked McGonagall, nodding toward the shelf. 

"Everything, it seems," McGonagall told her sadly, and Bella departed the ruined remains of Hogwarts with that grim thought echoing in her mind. 


	11. Chapter 11

Thestrals _ hated _ Bellatrix Black. They always had shied from her, even since her first year, but now they actively fled from her, defying the half-giant groundskeeper until finally he was able to bridle two of them for the carriage ride.

Sweating, he said, “I think they’ll take you there, Miss Black, unless yeh’d rather a boat ride.” His throat was thick, with a distinctive West Country accent. 

Bellatrix sniffed at him and mounted the carriage. One of the beasts sprung into the air, and the other spooked and shot in the opposite direction, straining the hitch of the carriage. The movement jostled Bellatrix nearly out of the damn thing altogether. She caught herself on the edge of the open door with one boot and rammed herself into the far corner. It was damn cold, she mused as the beasts vied for control over the carriage. And she was too old for this crap, being shuttled out of Hogwarts like a student. Still, she’d rather this than confronting McGonagall again, and the Headmaster’s office had the only Floo connection in the whole castle. 

In all her pained pondering of their shared mark, Bella had never herself wondered if Muddy was embarrassed of _ her. _Muddy hadn’t warned her; hadn’t wanted to talk about anything of real substance during their time in bed at Grimmauld. She had never given an indication that her presence might be less than welcome at Hogwarts - Bella had only thought of the parents, and not the children and their unique cruelties. If the press had dwelt with such interest on their shared mark, it stood to reason that the children would have heard about it. She felt badly for the girl. So this scheme was McGonagall’s invention, and not Muddy’s request. 

Well, she’d make the most of it, anyway. It was just a half-year, from mid-October to their NEWTs in May. Should she approach Muddy on Wednesday, after their tutoring session? She thought of writing a letter to ask, but the carriage was still rattling and listing wildly. Some part of her thought that perhaps Muddy would not like a letter from her at all. She detected the pathos in her own thought, and tried to dismiss it. 

The Thestrals did deliver her to the train station, where the magical train waited with just one car attached. It was eerie, Bella thought to herself. Utterly desolate. She boarded, and the train rolled reluctantly forward, gaining speed. Bella wished for a wand. Even a broom would do. Anything but this, transportation designed for children who could not yet Apparate. She’d never made a Portkey - oh, but you could not Portkey in Hogwarts either, and the Thestrals were the worst part of the bargain, anyway. She sighed and pulled a sheaf of papers out of her pocket, writing Muddy. Three drafts later, she had something she was satisfied with - a marked improvement from last month, three drafts rather than seven. 

She sighed and wondered if she should have gone to the Hogwarts library after class. Now, she’d have to drag Andy back out to Diagon Alley to purchase books on core elemental theory, which wasn’t adequately covered in the collection she’d gotten so far. 

Actually… the Grimmauld library might do the trick! She shifted impatiently, unexpectedly excited by the idea. She should have checked it before, but they wouldn’t have such basic texts as the seventh-year curriculum - although Sirius and Regulus _ had _ been to Hogwarts - she remembered the Grimmauld library vaguely, through a child’s eyes, the tall walls lined with books, the seemingly endless wealth of knowledge molding away and forgotten. Her childhood home had only a study; books were neglected in favor of more athletic or social pursuits. Bellatrix hadn’t known enough at the time to question that. Old Cygnus had always valued _ servants _ with arcane knowledge; wands were for dueling, for exerting the pureblood right of domination over the lesser wizards, and House Black had always been a clan of conquerers. But Grimmauld - Grimmauld had a library. 

Bella sprung to her feet, pacing the aisle, back and forth. The train car was empty, and she would disturb no one by pacing.

And then, without any warning at all, the scrying presence was back. She’d renewed her Untraceable charm - it shouldn’t have found her, how could her unseen observer know that she would be on the Hogwarts Express? Yet it was there. Bella almost jumped out of her skin, wishing for her wand. She was suddenly aware of her complete helplessness - Andy and Muddy were not here to protect her, not if the train was boarded. 

She scoured the train and found a small compartment for luggage, which she jammed herself in to until the train reached King’s Cross. The unseen presence did not show itself, but it stayed with her until she was finally, finally back at Grimmauld. 

It was past noon. She was hungry in an abstract way. She wandered up the stairs - the house was empty, of course, they were all at Narcissa's trial. She opened her bedroom door to find a thick, folded parchment had been slipped under. The parchment bore instructions, and a small slip of paper on top. The slip of paper read, “Found this on the way to the Ministry, thought you might like to watch. -A”. 

The instructions read:

_ BUY THIS NOW! SO YOU WEREN’T ABLE TO OBTAIN TICKETS FOR THE TRIALS OF THE CENTURY!?! WE HAVE EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS FOR LIVE COVERAGE! OPEN ME UP AND ALL YOUR QUESTIONS WILL BE ANSWERED!!! _

Below the bellowing sales pitch, there were fine-print disclosures that filled the rest of the cover. Bella ignored them, folding out the parchment, wondering.

The moving picture showed a nearly-full audience chamber. The dias was empty, but the murmur of the crowd was nearly deafening, unpleasantly tinny, filling Bella’s room with a clamour. Bella sat the parchment upright - it had been folded in such a way that it would stand up - and lounged on her bed, wondering. She spared a glance at her desk chair, but thought it would take a few days yet to clear her memory of riding Muddy's fingers in that very spot. She needed a clear mind for watching her sister's trial.

A tribunal filed into the chambers first. She squinted her eyes, trying to discern the men’s identities. A Greengrass, Bella could never remember their names. Trafford Avery, the uptight prick. Uther Brown, of course. They must be the representatives of their prospective houses in the Wizengamot, although Bella was briefly thrown by the fact that the entire Wizengamot was not presiding. Would the tribunal bring a recommendation to the group? Or was the tribunal the entire presiding body? She briefly regretted not following the trials in the Prophet. 

Narcissa was brought out in manacles, and Bella shivered at the impropriety of it. A Black, in shackles like a common thief! She put her elbows on her knees and leaned forward, trying to read her sister’s expression. She already knew she’d be unbowed, although perhaps some begging and scraping was more in order. Bella would not bow, either, when her trial came.

Greengrass read the list of charges. “Aiding and abetting a known fugitive.” _ The Dark Lord. _ “Participating in a criminal organization, thus indirectly contributing to the deaths of thirty-seven wizards, three of whom were pure-blooded.” That was interesting; Bella did not know who the pure-bloods might be. Were they counting Death Eaters? Known combatants, or just the victims of the Dark Lord’s reign of terror? The number seemed low to Bella, and the charges seemed minor enough that Cissy might not warrant a sentence in Azkaban. 

Wait, no - Azkaban was closed permanently. Bella turned the thought around in her head, wondering again where they were sending criminals now. Wondering if the dementors were roaming the coastline, most likely eating up little Muggle souls and causing havoc. The thought was oddly satisfying to her. 

She imagined sitting in that chair, staring out at the rowdy crowd, ignoring the tribunal. She imagined her own list of charges, which certainly would include murder, torture - all the crimes she’d been committed to Azkaban for, plus three years of additional malfeasance and debauchery. Kin-slaying, for Sirius. Perhaps they’d add the women she’d helped escape Azkaban to the list. Would any of them testify against her? Fidelity might. And rape was a punishable offense, although they’d have only Fidelity’s word against hers on that count. 

_ Betrayal. Betrayal of that which you held most dear. _ The voice sounded like the Dark Lord’s at his most spiteful, hissing and spitting with unrestrained fury. She could not help but agree with him. That was her greatest crime, not that they would try her for it. To have turned on the Dark Lord - to have killed him when his back was turned - she wished she’d died after that, except no Death Eater could stand against her even in the depths of her grief. 

And when He returned, Narcissa would be next on his list, for it was _ her _ betrayal that had sparked Bella’s. Bellatrix Black had never repented - had never lied to the Wizengamot, had never re-entered society like the Malfoys had. Bellatrix had betrayed the Dark Lord only the one time, although that one time was all that it had taken.

In her heart of hearts, she knew He was not dead. That this was all a farce. It had taken fifteen years for Him to return last time. Would it be longer, or shorter next time? However much time it took, that would be the length of her remaining life span. It was a cruel irony that now, for the first time, Bella truly had something to live for. 

Narcissa was testifying. She admitted to everything, gave out the names of each Death Eater whose faces she'd seen (there were many, and she did not neglect to mention Bella or Lucius). She said that she cooperated with the Dark Lord out of fear and not loyalty. “After the Dark Lord struck Harry Potter, he asked me to check the body. Harry Potter was not dead, although he’d been hit by the Killing Curse. I asked the boy if my son was alive, and he told me he was. I wanted the conflict to end, so I lied to the Dark Lord and told him that the boy was dead. But the Dark Lord looked at my face and knew it to be a lie. He cursed me, and Bella turned on him, killing him.”

“A curse?” It was Greengrass again. “How do you mean?”

Narcissa stood and opened her robes, pulling up her shirt to reveal a long white scar that circled fully around her torso. Bella hadn’t known about this - she leaned forward, the picture grainy and unsatisfying. She did not know this curse. 

“We continue to try to dispel the curse, but it is - it is persistent. The curse removes all sensation below its mark.” Narcissa arranged her clothing back into place and took her seat. 

Bella snorted. It was not a _ terrible _ curse - He must have planned to layer more on top of it - but it was no Crucio, either. Crucio was so impermanent. The Dark Lord must have wanted to really leave His mark. Poor Lucius must be starved for affection. Bella snorted again. 

“Do you have any witnesses on your behalf?” Greengrass asked. 

“Harry Potter will testify. You have rightfully acquitted Pius Thicknesse, who can testify as to my actions, although he was under Imperius at the time. He will tell you that I was obedient to the Dark Lord, but never actively or enthusiastically supported him.”

“One more question,” Uther Brown interjected. “What of your husband, Lucius Malfoy? What can you tell us about his involvement with Lord Voldemort and his actions during the Second War?”

Cissy leveled a stare at Brown that sizzled even through the grainy image. “Lucius can speak to his own actions at the time of _ his _ trial,” she told him coldly. 

“Are you refusing to testify?” 

“Yes,” Cissy told him, and Bella hooted happily. So she wouldn’t lie for her wretched husband. Lucius had truly been a failure of a Death Eater, notable only for his recruitment of those awful Snatchers, an utter mess himself. Bella couldn’t think of a single person Lucius had actually killed. He’d condoned torture, but the only person he himself had actually tortured was Muddy, and her ineptly. You really had to _ mean _ it with Crucio, and Lucius was far too sleek and slimy to want much of anything at all. 

When the testimony was over, the tribunal met privately, and the courtroom cleared out for the verdict's announcement tomorrow morning. Nobody had testified against Narcissa, which likely meant that the public was as certain of her acquittal as Andy was. Nobody was stupid enough to actively try to lock Narcissa up, not when they still hoped for an invitation to the annual Malfoy Yule Ball. Perhaps Lucius would be prosecuted, but his case was much cleaner than Narcissa's. Lucius might not work again, not that the Malfoys needed the money. But Narcissa would always have her parties, a delicate show of social power which Lucius - and Bella herself, for that matter - would never fully comprehend. 

Bella went downstairs with the vague thought of finding food, and stopped at the pile of Prophets haphazardly stacked on a stool beside the door. The question of the replacement wizarding prison came back into her mind, and she grabbed up a handful of them and brought them to the lounge. 

The lounge was the most decrepit of the rooms in active use. There were a few tables pushed up against each other - Bella thought maybe the Order had used it as a dining hall, although a few of the tables were _ not _for dining. She spied a ping-pong table in the far corner. Chairs were likewise stacked, some on the tables. Andy and Nymphadora would be back soon, though, and it was less likely that they would disturb her here. 

She flipped to the table of contents on the first Prophet, scanning it and hoping not to see the name Weasley. Or Granger, for that matter - or Black. Thankfully there was nothing in that first issue, just a few articles on real estate. She tossed it on the ground and found the next one. The headliner read, "Muggleborn to take over the Wizengamot! A new movement challenges the distribution of wealth and power."

What a load of nonsense. She scanned the article, picking out a few names. There was the shop owner for that bakery they had fire bombed toward the beginning, before they'd installed the stand-in Minister and begun pulling their permits in Diagon Alley. She didn't recognize the other names, until she got to a quote on the second page by one Granger. 

She lit the paper on fire and tossed it into the empty fireplace, which caused a small conflagration of spider webs and old ashes. The smoke drove her from the room. She stomped back up the stairs, food again forgotten. 

Kingsley Shacklebolt showed up at their doorstep unannounced only a few minutes later than Andy and Nymphadora. He asked for a private audience with Bella, and was shown into the smaller office near the front door.

Bella threw herself into the chair behind the huge oaken desk, tossing her feet up on the desk corner and studying him. There were two chairs before the desk, but Shacklebolt declined to sit. 

"Tea?" Bella drawled at him. "I'm sure my sister could manage something to your liking…"

"Thank you, but no," Shacklebolt said. 

"I wondered how long it would take you to visit," Bella told him. She couldn't resist the urge to gloat, just a bit. "How do you like the ancestral home of the Blacks? Magnificent, isn't it?"

"Yes. Sirius did a good job fixing it up, and I see that you ladies are doing well at maintaining it, even after Kreacher's death."

So he'd been here before. Of course, that wretched Order was here. "Well," Bella huffed. "Just Andy really."

"It is a large estate," Shacklebolt began, and then seemed to think better of it. "I am here to interview you on the matter of those… prisoners you obtained."

"What of them?" Bella asked, picking under her fingernails. 

"Half are either Squibs or Muggles."

She looked at his face carefully, but it was unreadable. She considered using legilimency on him, but thought it might not go over too well. Either way, Bella was not a particularly accomplished Legimens. Legilimency was an art practiced by manipulators, and Bella preferred a more direct approach. She'd hated when the Dark Lord used the spell on her - hadn't she proven herself to be ceaselessly devoted? She hated his distrust of her. Although it had been justified. Perhaps that meant that Bella was the ultimate manipulator, in the end. The back of her throat stung, her stomach rebelling against the thought. 

Shacklebolt was waiting for her response. "You don't say," she responded after a long moment. "Well, the village might have been… mixed. Or perhaps the children are lying to you."

"You've forced my hand, Bellatrix. I can't release them, in case they are hiding their magical ability. I can't use Veritaserum, as they have committed no crime. I had intended to house them at Hogwarts, but with five of them showing no magical ability… Hogwarts is not suitable. I begin to wonder if you did this deliberately."

Bella slammed her boot heels sharply down on the stone floor. She'd had enough of these games. She was frustrated, upset with herself for her fixation on the Dark Lord today, upset with Hermione for giving her the cold shoulder, upset with the damn Thestrals and her stalker and her own helplessness.

She paced around Shacklebolt, who did not turn to face her as she circled him. "Did I betray the Dark Lord and aid you in your _ stupid campaign _ to uphold the Statute just to be dragged through the mud because of some inane suspicion of yours?" she hissed at him. It was the first time she'd admitted the reality of her betrayal out loud. "Be glad for what you have, a disgraced Death Eater cowed to your cause. Now _ get out." _

He scurried away, and Bella briefly congratulated herself on successfully diverting his attention from what must have been his next question. For the children must have told them the truth of it - that taking prisoners of war was a sacrilege to their culture, a coward's ploy to prey upon those too young to have made their own Horcruxes. And the people of the desert would come for their children, Muggle and wizard alike, so the Ministry should be careful to house them in an impenetrable dungeon. To put them at Hogwarts would be a fatal move, but some part of Bella relished the thought of such stupidity. Perhaps she wanted the children to be sprung. Perhaps this would be how the Dark Lord was resurrected - at one of the tribal prayer-fires, the perfect revenge for Bella who was, after all, a wretched _ betrayer _no better than the worst of His snivelling defectors. No hero; never the hero. 

A fraud. 


	12. Chapter 12

"Fire, Water, Earth, and Air," Bella droned, watching the little incarnations as they wrestled. The fire elemental was barely a flicker under the onslaught of Water. Water hissed with bodily release, coming up in a plume of fog that drifted toward the classroom ceiling. 

The pile of rocks Bella had animated into a tiny rock golem fared no better. It was tossing in the air above the wooden floorboards, resolving into a humanoid shape only to fracture apart into separate rocks again. Its golem shape gave a hint as to its mood, however, which was delighted. Bella had no idea how such a simple thing of rock could possibly emote so well its utter joy and happiness - like a baby tossed by trusted hands into the air, the golem tittered and threw itself into the sensation of flight. 

Fire had recovered its senses, skittering away from Water and then rearing up in a gout that would be terrifying if it were not so small. Water dove enthusiastically into the very center of Fire, and Fire ducked its upper flames down to twist around Water in something like a lover's embrace. 

A low murmur sounded around the room and Bella looked up to see that the group had rounded out at a dozen, mostly seventh-years. Draco was among them, as was Harry Potter. The Weasel and Muddy were absent. 

Her return letter yesterday had simply said,  _ Perhaps next week would be better, Bella. _ Bella had no idea that by agreeing to take this tutoring gig, she'd be treated to the unique torture of seeing her soulmate and not being able to speak to her. Maybe it would be better if Muddy did not attend tutoring, although part of Bella's heart sank at the thought of another day without her. It felt like failure, and Bella did not like to fail. And even just looking at Muddy brought warmth to her chest, which was cold and empty now. 

The kids all seemed enraptured by the tiny spirits' dance. The four briefly entangled themselves, the rocks sizzling hot in the fire, the wind stoking the fire until it was nearly knee-height, and Water snapping at all the spirits' heels, impatient for attention or perhaps jealous of the others for having Fire from her, however briefly. 

Bella thought it was probably time to start tutoring. She was reading emotion into the mindless things, and it was only making her more morose. "The core elements," she finished crisply, tapping the borrowed wand on the globe she'd set over them all. "Break it up," she murmured, and a narrow sliver of ice from her wand separated the four elements. The caretaker, Finch or Flint or something like that, leveled a hard stare at her from the back of the room, which she ignored. 

"How did you make them?" a Ravenclaw whispered reverently. 

"They are incarnations, not conjurations," Bella told them. Like the students, her own eye was drawn by the creatures. Fire had found the edge of the glass and now ran up it toward Bella's hand, while Water circled the bottom, waiting. "As incarnations are not a subject of the NEWTs, I'd rather not get into all the details. But I thought it might help you to see them all. Easier to imagine the concepts than reading from a textbook." 

A familiar voice interjected. "Rowena Ravenclaw was the first to incarnate each of the Four Elements, and that discovery finally convinced Helga Hufflepuff that Slytherin and Gryffindor’s scheme of four Houses would actually work." Before Granger stopped speaking Bella's heart flew through fluttering, and then pounding, and then - finding Muddy's eyes meeting hers - a sudden calm, that warmth and satisfaction of  _ this _ , the mark or whatever, and then Bella recovered herself and tapped smartly on the glass, showering the incarnations with ice again. 

"This isn't a history lesson, but yes, there are correspondences with the houses of Hogwarts." Bella twisted her lip at Muddy and then tore her eyes away to find that a few other students had drifted in. It would be cozy here, in this spare room - no matter. The students looked between the two witches in barely disguised curiosity. "Don't make the mistake of identifying yourself with one of the elements, or you'll neglect the rest. The sixteenth century craze got that part right, if little else - the elements work best when they are in balance."

She removed Water from the glass cage first, demonstrating various transfigurations meant for water. "Water has affinities," she told them as she demonstrated. "And Water is the most easily conjured element, which makes its affinities most useful - and most common."

"In duels?" a black boy in Fifth Year asked her eagerly. 

Bella sighed heavily. "And this is not your Defense class, is it?" She gave him time to consider the question and then added, "Not in duels, no. Water's affinities are not suited to direct violence. The only useful transfiguration of water in dueling is ice, which is easily dodged and shattered." She surveyed the students' attentive faces and indulged herself, adding, "Fire is better."

She gave each of the other incarnations a round and then passed them out to the children. Only seventh-years were allowed on Fire, and naturally the Slytherins flocked to it. The three of them, Draco included, faced off against Muddy and her friends, and Bella kept a watchful eye on them as she focused on the other groups. 

When she'd visited each, she couldn't avoid Fire any longer. She approached from Draco's side of the table, trying not to loom. Draco, one of the other Slytherin boys, and the Weasel were all taller than her, but height was not everything. 

"Why do you…" Muddy was asking Potter, but she caught a glimpse of Bella from the corner of her eye and fell silent. 

The fire incarnation turned from a block of brick back into itself again, and the Weasel nudged her, which seemed to have no effect.

"Cat got your -" one of the Slytherins began, and Bella cut him off. 

"Do you have a question, Granger?" She was proud of how easily the name rolled off her tongue. It was well that she'd practiced. "This is tutoring, not class. The entire point is to have your questions answered."

"Only about five hundred," Potter told Bella, grinning in that disarming way he had. "Go on, Hermione."

"Just wondering why they turn back into their incarnations so easily," Muddy asked her. She hadn't stopped looking at Bella, and spoke with confidence, shoulders back and head up. Bold. Her Muddy did not need permission from any half-blood to speak up, and Bella grinned at her, liking how her school tie was so neat. She did her hair differently… 

They were all waiting for her to answer. "Good question. What'd be your answer to it?"

"My answer is that McGonagall hasn't finished the lesson on transfiguration permanency, and you're giving us a hint without giving away the whole truth." Her furrowed brow made it clear what Muddy thought of that. 

Bella arched an eyebrow. "Well, then, I shouldn't ruin the old woman's surprise, should I? But you haven't tried a permanent transfiguration on this. Have you?" She wondered if she should have included some safety tips during the introduction. 

Muddy scoffed. "I already know the point she is trying to make with it.  _ That's  _ the easy part." She didn't pause at all. "I also wondered how you made them so small. It's supposed to be - aren't - don't they come out person-sized?" 

"Maybe in the books," Bella told her.

"If you won't tell us how you did it, at least let us watch you dismiss them?" Muddy asked. Potter was right - she'd take up all the space in the room with her questions. 

"I'd planned to." Bella snapped her fingers loudly. "All right, everyone switch stations, last chance on Fire, and you'll have less time on your last two so choose wisely now."

Draco drifted to her side while the rest of the students shuffled around the table. "Mother was shocked to hear you were teaching at Hogwarts."

"I was shocked to hear that she was on trial Monday," Bella returned. She shot a glance at him - good lad, he was faced straight forward, and she turned her head back away from him so that they were twin statues in place. He was even taller than he was last year - perhaps he would reach his father's height. He was only eighteen, and a handsome boy. She had rarely felt anything but pity for him, but this new world might have more space for a boy like him than the world they had both inhabited last year. 

"Acquitted," Draco muttered. "She took a great risk on your behalf, which you must not have noticed. She asked that I bring you to supper Friday night. Although I am guessing Saturday would be a better day for you?" 

She looked sharply back at him, and he was nodding at Muddy's back, which was almost pointedly turned to them. Seventh-year Transfiguration class ended at 4 on Fridays.

"I - I am not sure." Next week, Muddy had told her. Friday should be fine. Would Muddy visit her at Grimmauld again this weekend? Oh, if only Bella's heart would not  _ ache _ , she could answer her nephew. "Friday should be fine."

"Aunt Bella?" Draco's voice began to be simpering in a deeply undignified way. Bella turned to face him, and he was giving her puppy eyes, too. "I - I was hoping you might train me in dueling. I have a free period between your tutoring and class Friday afternoon."

She waved him away, impatient. "Of course, Draco," she answered. She realized only after that she should have asked him whatever possessed him to want to learn dueling  _ now _ , with the war finally over. 

Bella made good on her promise and dismissed the incarnations at ten before five. The students filed out, chattering with what Bella assumed was childish enthusiasm. A few stayed after with specific questions on their essays, which Bella tried to address without taking the work out of it completely - she provided book references and hints, which was what she guessed she was supposed to do. 

When the last of them left, Bella leaned back against the desk, catching her breath from what really was not an easy ritual to perform. The summoning of the spirits was harder, but only slightly.

Flinchy - he looked like a Flinchy, that's what she'd call him - marched up to her and tapped his open palm. Bella gave over the borrowed wand reluctantly, feeling the surge of magical potential fizzle, the taste of giving her wand back to a Squib sour in her mouth. 

She must have been staring at the floor when Muddy burst back in through the door, waving her wand at the door which glowed and then faded. 

"Mu - Hermione," Bella gasped in disbelief.

"We only have a bit of time," Muddy told her, breasts heaving. There was a drip of sweat on her brow, indication that she might have run far, and Bella wanted to lick it off her face. 

Something beneath her navel, deep in her belly, tugged her toward Muddy. She didn't resist it. She put up one hesitant hand to cup the girl's cheek, and Muddy leaned closer. Oh, touch, what a different bliss than just looking. They both sighed, although Muddy's breath was still fast and it sounded more like a moan to Bella. 

Bella's hand drifted down to that neat tie, and she began loosening it. Muddy's eyes were depthless, shining brightly in the muted light of the classroom. She watched Muddy's throat ripple as she swallowed, feeling an inexorable wave of magnetic force draw her closer. 

Bella leaned in and kissed the bead of sweat on Muddy's forehead. She murmured into her ear, "I didn't think you'd be back."

Muddy seemed to smile, unseen. "I - I've never seen incarnations before. I didn't think anyone alive could summon them."

"You liked the little beasties, did you?" The tie was loosened, and Bella found the top button to Muddy's shirt and undid it. 

"You are just... really impressive, Bellatrix. Really." 

Bella felt her soul mark throb in response, and Muddy shuddered. Bella kissed her neck where she'd exposed it, nipping lightly with her teeth. She didn't need to say what was on the tip of her tongue, which was that of course Muddy thought she was impressive. It was because Muddy would so adore her that the mark had touched Bellatrix, years before Muddy's birth. Muddy didn't like the thought of being forced to feel things by the mark, but this - it seemed that the incarnations might have genuinely touched Muddy, where the mark's influence had felt more irrational before. Perhaps she came back of her own free will, and not reluctantly, this time. 

Bella kept undoing the buttons of Muddy's shirt, exposing high collarbones, which she trailed kisses down. Her mouth tingled with eagerness. She went back up the other side, and Muddy took her face in both hands and drew their lips together. 

It did not start sweet. Muddy's blood was hot as usual, and she tasted Bella like a glutton tasted pie - with the intention of having the entire confectionery and not just a slice to go.  _ We don't have much time,  _ Bella remembered with disappointment. She wanted to talk. She wanted to know Muddy, but the ferocity of Muddy's kiss did not leave any doubt as to her plan. 

Muddy pushed the light sweater off Bella's shoulders first, and then focused on backing her right straight into the desk she'd just been leaning against. She remembered Flinchy - what a joke, to have a monitor who left so promptly, letting Bella loose in the castle to do what she wished with the students. Or, for a student to do what she wished with her. 

The desk was empty, and Muddy nodded an unspoken command to Bella. Bella opened her mouth, and something flashed across Muddy's eyes.  _ No time, _ Bella remembered, and Muddy would probably not appreciate that Bella wanted - what? To talk? Idle chit-chat over tea? When Muddy's eyes held such hunger, and inquisitive minds were already wondering where Hermione Granger, Golden Girl, had gone on the night that the notorious Death Eater had her first tutoring session? Oh, if only they could know that Bella wanted to talk rather than laying obediently down on the desk and offering her body up. 

And what would they think when Muddy slid eagerly up to mount her, slotting their thighs against each other, employing both hands in the quest for upright nipples, and inserting her tongue into Bella's mouth as if it itself was a sexual instrument? Muddy set an unforgiving pace, grinding fast and hard against Bella's thigh. Wetness was already dripping down Bella. It wasn't Muddy now that had done it, though - it was the undoing of the tie, sensual and smooth and feeling somewhat like unwrapping a present. It was the thought that Muddy had loved her for herself, for her actual actions, her real accomplishment, and might have realized it before lust clouded her eyes. 

Muddy's hand ran clumsily up Bella's outer thigh, pushing aside her skirt. She wrapped it around to grip Bella's ass in that hand, and then quickly moved it around to probe between her legs, pushing Bella's underwear aside cursorily. Finding the flood of wetness there to meet her, Muddy shifted her hips and pressed inside as quickly, moaning in a way that made Bella hope she'd sealed the room's sound as well as its door. Muddy's pace was far too quick, but Bella pulled her face up to kiss her tenderly, grinding her hips deliberately into Muddy's palm, and Muddy noticed enough to slow down.

She drove her own pelvis hard down against Bella's leg, eagerly sliding upward, jamming her hand between them, driving deeper. Bella moaned and put her leg up so that her knee cradled Muddy's hips, and Muddy mirrored the position, folding her outside leg up and allowing her full access to Bella without their bodies being too flush to each other. The material of Muddy's pants felt rough on the sensitive skin of Bella's thigh. 

"What if someone broke through my wards right now?" Muddy asked Bella, eyes bright. She was propped up on one hand, giving a full view of her bra and chest through the open robe and her white shirt. The tie hung down between their bodies, trailing lazily across Bella's chest. 

Bella shook her head, incapable of responding to Muddy's question but knowing that the thought was repulsive and not erotic to her. She did not want anyone to walk in on this. This was private, a love affair and not a risky tryst. 

Muddy saw it in her eyes and seemed to repent. "I have you all to myself," she said, rolling her fingers inside. Bella nodded breathlessly, arching. She grabbed Muddy's tie and pulled her head down, but Muddy dipped to only briefly kiss her, staying close so that their breath mingled. The look in her eye was already vague. Bella ran her fingers down her chest, under the shirt, pushing up Muddy's bra and cupping her breasts in each hand. She let the nipples rest against the soft skin between her thumb and forefinger, and then she squeezed her fingers together to gently pinch them and Muddy lurched forward mindlessly. The angle of her fingers inside shifted, and Bella felt such intense pleasure that she could not breathe. 

"There?" Muddy breathed. "Is it there, Bella?" She was looking closely at Bella's face, as if she could read something new on it. 

The sound of her own name on Muddy's lips forced a moan from Bella. She nodded, and Muddy renewed her focused attentions. 

"Yes, pet," Bella finally managed.  _ Yes. _ She said that word a few more times, and then Muddy's hips were jerking, her core hot against Bella's exposed thigh even through the fabric that separated them. The urge to feel her there was nearly overwhelming. Muddy had told her what it felt like when Bella's body squeezed her fingers. Bella  _ had _ to have that - had to have Muddy, as Muddy was having her. 

Bella grabbed Muddy's hair at the base of her neck and thrust into her fingers, which had stilled, and Muddy shuddered again. She bit down on Muddy's neck, and Muddy curled her fingers weakly, gasping. "Ouch," she said. 

"Harder," Bella growled at her.  _ Or let me have you. Let me inside you.  _ Her right hand curled into a fist on her own hip, close to Muddy's core, as close as she dared. 

"I'm trying," Muddy nearly cried. "It's - my arm -"

"You're tired  _ now?"  _ Bella mocked. Hermione's touch had become only frustrating. She had felt release with Hermione before, but - this was no longer what she wanted, this powerlessness, the confusion of imagined rejection unassuaged by a few moments of lust. 

"No, it's been hurting all week," Muddy told her, flushed pink and looking utterly regretful. 

"Well, then, I think we're done," Bella told her, and she pushed Muddy's arm away. Muddy protested, beginning to look hurt, but she did remove her fingers from inside Bella. "Go on, get off." She pushed Muddy's shoulders, and Muddy stood up, releasing Bella from beneath her. 

"You don't want to -"

"We're done, I said." Bella's chest was tight, a hard knot of anger restricting her breath. 

"We could have figured something else out," Muddy offered. There was a smear of juices on her right thigh, and Bella glanced at it meaningfully before turning away. 

She felt Muddy approach her, trying to wrap two warm arms around her back. Bella stepped away from the hug. "You got what you came for. Now  _ get out," _ she told Muddy, gritting her teeth. 

Muddy gasped out what sounded like a sob, and Bella turned to her, hoping. Oh, she was foolish; she pulled this just as a stunt, even though she hadn't known it in the moment, and all she'd really wanted today was some real acknowledgement from Muddy, not sex. Even if Muddy called it love, the use of that word did not make it so. She wanted to grab Muddy's shoulders and shake her until she said - what? Bella did not know what was missing, except that she hadn't yet seen it. 

But Muddy turned away, wiping her cheeks, buttoning her blouse, removing the wards on the door, and leaving Bella to stand in the corner alone. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just taking my sweet ass time here. 
> 
> Thanks again to DelphiBlack_Granger/Erazon for beta help. 
> 
> And thanks to everyone who has commented and expressed their support. Hope y'all don't hate me for this one.

Bella lounged as well as one could on an office chair, sipping her spiked pumpkin juice and deflecting her nephew's hexes, one after the other. 

_ "Diri Sevus!" _

_ "Terrsus." _

Draco scowled. _ "Petrificus Totalus!" _

_ "Reparifors," _ Bella answered lazily, pointing her wand at her feet. The Full Body-Bind Curse began to seize her legs, and then as quickly released her. 

She sipped her drink and saw Draco's scowl smooth away into a questioning look. 

"Good. You noticed that."

"It wasn't a counter charm," Draco said grudgingly. "Why'd you do that?"

"Tell me all the reasons I shouldn't, first."

He sat down on the other chair in the small classroom, looking a little drained. "You shouldn't ever point your wand away from your opponent. If you shielded, you'd have a chance to deflect the spell directly back." He frowned, clearly searching his mind. "Seems like it wouldn't be good form, if you were bothering with dueling form." The last was spoken in a mutter. 

"The reason," Bella said, leaning forward heavily, elbows on her knees, "is that the Full Body-Bind Curse takes a lot of energy to cast. Not as much as the Killing Curse, but somewhat close to that. Most dueling wizards do not use it. Those that do learn to cut the incantation off early. It's a long incantation, but if you don't finish it, the spell still looks like it was cast, but is essentially without cost.

_ "Reparifors, _on the other hand - if the spell does not take effect, there isn't any damage to repair, so it's free to cast. And if you do not have a shield up, you can very quickly turn on your opponent, without needing to drop the shield."

"You clearly don't duel Gryffindors much," Draco muttered. Bella scoffed at him, and he blushed. "Guess maybe you do," he amended quickly. "Did, rather." He shot her a look. 

She sat back in satisfaction, redirecting her attention back to the pumpkin juice. 

"Are you sure you should be drinking on the job?" he asked her. 

"This isn't my job," she said smugly. "All right, looks like you're tuckered out. Ready to recite all the counter charms back to me now?"

He paled, stuttering.

"From the top," Bella bellowed, standing up. _ "Crucio." _

Without her intention, a shot of red lightning emanated from her wand, and Draco jumped up out of his chair, yelping. It hadn't hit him, but it might have gotten a bit close to his toes. 

"Sorry," Bella muttered. She put the pumpkin juice down on her chair. She'd nearly finished it, anyway. The spell shouldn’t have worked, but given the roiling emotions in her chest - she wasn’t really all that surprised. 

"You know," Draco ventured, probably thinking along the same lines as Bella. "She's been nearly insufferable since your first tutoring session. Pissy as all hell. Won't stop speaking up in class. Crying, too. Refuses to eat."

"You best friends now?" Bella sneered. Muddy hadn't shown up at tutoring this morning, which shouldn't have surprised her, but she'd prepared another clue for the Transfiguration class this afternoon and it had irked her. Why did she go through so much effort to prepare, if Muddy didn't bother to show up? And she had not written, either. _ The powerlessness of waiting all day for a letter. _ Bella was no longer in the mood to grovel. 

"Thought you might like to know," Draco said, eyeing her. 

“You are incorrect,” she told him brusquely. “From the top,” she repeated. “What’s the counter charm for Crucio?”

He muttered something to himself, and then answered her.

  
  


The courtyard was cold, deserted for now, fully in shade although it was just before noon and the sun was high in the sky. Bella perched herself carefully on one of the less-crumbled stairs in full view of the entryway, unwrapping her sandwich. 

This was to be her first full day at Hogwarts, 9 to a very late 5 o’clock. It was well that she’d taken the pumpkin juice; even with the long breaks, it was a lot to ask Bellatrix Black to keep students’ hours. She wasn’t paid enough for that… although, looking back, Bella realized that she was not entirely sure _ what _ her salary was, exactly. Had she really neglected to ask? 

An interesting choice, this courtyard. Hogwarts was a large castle, built to house five times the number of students currently enrolled; there was plenty of space for miscreants and secret dalliances, which Bella had explored fully as a child here. She knew this courtyard, but not well - she’d never been one for dilapidation, and thirty years had not exactly been kind to the nooks and crannies, mold and aggressive weeds of this forgotten corner. 

She heard them before they showed themselves, childish voices shrill and oddly echoing. She tensed without meaning to, and then she tried to loosen her shoulders.

“She came,” came a low murmur, and some hissing whispers followed. The four children peered as one around the wall of the corridor that led here. 

Bella put down her sandwich, schooling her face to blankness. The children stumbled after each other. The tallest was the Ravenclaw, but the only girl came in at a close second. She was heavy-set, with a challenging look in her eye. She pulled out ahead of the rest, putting one hand on her hip at the base of the stairs, which brought her eyes approximately level to Bellatrix’s. 

“Jade West,” she said by way of introduction. “You already met Perseus Trebble. Jeminiah Nott,” she indicated the shortest boy, who was mousier than the rest and actually fidgeted at the hem of his tattered school-shirt. “Hector Carrow” was the last, a spindle-thin boy with the family’s characteristic sunken eyes. 

She instantly forgot every one of their names, and decided to call them by their mothers’ surnames. That shouldn’t be too hard, although their faces… their faces were not too distinct from each others’. Bella thought they all looked like Andy, when she was their age; curly-haired and dark of feature, with nicely defined jawlines, even the girl. All had ivory skin, except Jeminiah who was swarthy. Trebble was in his fourth year, the rest in their third. 

“A pleasure to finally meet you all,” Bella drawled. She did not stand - would not offer physical touch to her spawn. 

They all stared at her, and Bella wondered if she was expected to ask them questions about themselves. She had not prepared any; did not have any particular, intense curiosity about them, except to wonder what they looked like. Now she knew. They all looked like Andy.

“My mother always told me that a famous Death Eater was my sire,” West announced into the growing silence. “Hector’s mother said that he had three half-siblings, and he was the one that found us all once we were sorted.” 

“Is that so?” Bella said. “You all seem like very normal children.” She took a bite of her sandwich.

“Jeminah is top of the class in Transfiguration, Arithmancy, and Potions,” West announced with an air, and the Nott child puffed up his chest. “And I have won every Defense duel I’ve ever had,” she added. “So I wouldn’t say we’re normal.” 

“I’m a beater,” Hector broke in. “Tommy says he’s going to let me play next match. It’s just after All Hallows - next Saturday.” 

“All Carrows are beaters,” Bella said, but she did find herself grinning a little. “Saturday, you say?”

“Yeah,” the boy said, opening up brightly. “‘Cause Edward broke his nose and took off all week, and Tommy said he ought to have come to practice. I’ve never missed a single one.” 

“Hope you’re lifting weights,” Bella observed. He was awfully skinny for a beater. 

“Jade comes along,” he told her, shooting a glance at his half-sister. “Anyway, it’s not your strength that really matters. It’s the angle, you know?” 

“I did not play Quidditch,” Bella informed them. In the 70s, it was not a woman’s sport. “But I imagine that is likely the case.”

“Strength matters,” Jade said, and then she sobered. “None of us knew that our father was - that it was you.” 

“And I’m sure that your mothers would have preferred the fact to remain unknown,” Bella observed. She studied them all, but their faces didn’t give away much. “Are you glad to know who your - your father is?” Her lip twisted at the turn of phrase, but the exact word they used did not matter much.

They all considered the question carefully. Of course, it was Jade that answered. “I’m glad to know.” She sighed. “My first year was - it was absolutely horrid, with the - the takeover, the new professors, and then the Headmaster died, and I thought a little that - I wished that the Dark Lord wouldn’t interfere. I wanted to join Dumbledore’s Army, but everyone I asked just thought I was lying.”

Bella smiled a little. She did not know what Dumbledore’s Army was, but it sounded like somewhere Slytherins would not be welcome.

“I wanted to join, too,” Trebble said, almost too quietly to hear. He shifted uncomfortably, avoiding her gaze. She wondered quite suddenly whether her mother had told him the nature of their physical relationship - but no, fourteen was too young to hear that type of thing about your parents. Although it hadn’t been too young for Bella. She’d known it about her parents since before she could remember. It was a reality of marriage, or so she’d thought for a long time. Certainly she had never thought she’d like to bed a husband. It was lucky that she’d had the mark, and that was the reason she’d so openly flaunted it at school - to fend off any possible suitors, to ensure that her father could not arrange a marriage even when the mark was so clearly without its match. 

So maybe Trebble did know. He was so clearly ill at ease, more than the rest. 

They were all waiting for her response. She tried to recall what it was that they had said - right, Dumbledore's Army. She wondered for a brief moment whether the children intended to gauge her, but Trebble, at least, seemed absolutely sincere. So Jade was likely not lying, either. 

"Wanted to fight the Dark Lord, eh, puppies?" The term of endearment slipped out before Bella could help it, but they all seemed to like it. "You were too young to fight," she said to them. 

"Harry Potter closed the Chamber of Secrets in his second year," Jeminiah spoke up. He was sincere, brown eyes gleaming. "And he fought Voldemort in his first year, with Hermione Granger's help. We're not too young."

Oh, what a new brand of Slytherin were these puppies, so easily turned defactor. Like Bella herself, they had sensed the shift in power, and would flee so quickly to the winning side, worshipping a half-blood and a Mudblood as their heroes. Bella realized that she herself likely had contributed to this warped reality - she'd struck the Dark Lord down, she was mated with the Mudblood in question and had, for all intents and purposes, publicly acknowledged their bond. She spared them a pained glance and finished her sandwich. 

"Do you support the Muggleborn Rights Coalition?" Jeminiah asked her. 

They all watched attentively as she chewed. It must be those protesters, the ones threatening the pureblood seats in the Wizengamot. She was not embarrassed of Muddy. She did not think that Andy should have been struck from the family tree. Did she think that the Mudbloods should have equal representation? The idea had been instantly repulsive to her when she'd first read it, but she had not spent time since considering the question fully. 

"I don't meddle in politics," Bella told them. Their faces seemed to fall. She brushed the crumbs off her robes and disappeared the wrapper of the sandwich. "It was a pleasure to meet you all," she said, and made to leave. 

"Will you come to the game?" It was West, of course, speaking on behalf of Carrow. 

"I will try," Bella told them. It was no promise, but they all seemed to brighten, even Trebble. 

"And should we - I mean, Jeminiah said we shouldn't, but I am - my scores are not all that good. So I wondered if we - if we could come to tutoring."

So they'd been avoiding it to spare her. They must have been planning for this meeting. She was grateful for that. 

"I'm teaching Draco outside of tutoring hours." Bella bit her lip, wondering if she'd regret this. She hadn't ever gotten instructions from Muddy on this subject. As usual, she was going off half-cocked and would likely live to regret it.

But. What the hell - this was her life, and not every single part of her could be Muddy's, even if Muddy wanted that. Which she clearly did not. 

"If you have a free period on Mondays, Wednesdays, or Fridays, I will reserve a classroom and teach you outside of tutoring hours. A better use of all our time," and it was awkward enough to have Muddy there. Perish the thought of introducing her own spawn to the already toxic mix. 

They were awfully cute, though. Not quite the demons she'd imagined when she first heard about them. Just children, whose path in life was not yet set. Bella hoped her presence in their lives would help them find the right path, and that they would not follow down hers. 

  
  


Bella waited, slouched in the back of the room, for Transfiguration to begin. The students all arrived in a large knot, and Muddy was there - Bella should not have been so relieved. 

She should also not be so drunk, but here she was. The room spun slightly, and Bella swallowed a hiccup. The house elves of Hogwarts were too easy to ply for spiked pumpkin juice, and she'd had too many hours to spare today. 

The students all turned in their scrolls - twelve inches, nothing too fancy - to McGonagall, and then she began a lecture on historical uses of permanent transfigurations, which Bella listened to with half an ear. What they were all eagerly awaiting was the reveal of those water glasses from Monday, which came a half hour before the class's end. 

Bella had not sobered up much at all. She hoped that Cissy was not expecting a very coherent dinner tonight, because that vodka was really sticking to her stomach. It brought an unpleasant emptiness with it. 

Each of the students retrieved their glasses, or the empty tags that showed where their glasses should be. Potter's glass was still there. The Weasel's was not.

"Now," McGonagall said. "How do you suppose we should answer the question of whether you all successfully completed a permanent transfiguration?"

Muddy's hand shot up, and McGonagall ignored her for a full ten seconds. Finally, a Ravenclaw raised her hand. "The remaining glasses are those that we put sufficient magical energy into to maintain them. I intended mine to be permanent, so here it is. Mostly everyone else must not have tried to, or else they didn't gauge the amount of energy correctly. So, we will have to wait a bit longer - a few months, at the least."

Muddy's hand actually quivered in the air. 

"Miss Greengrass, that is mainly correct. If I asked you to conjure a hundred more, what would you imagine might happen?"

"I might lose this one," Greengrass answered, seeming to gain confidence. 

"And if you didn't, and had to cast a stunning spell, what would happen?"

"My stunner would be weaker." 

"Good," McGonagall said. "Miss Granger, did you have something to add?"

"There is no such thing as a permanent conjuration, Professor," Muddy said loudly. "Most wizards do not have control over whether the conjurations they intended to be permanent will actually last. But if you build in a back door when you initially conjure something, it is as easy to dismiss a permanent conjuration as it is any other kind of conjuration. As so." Muddy pushed her elaborate glass goblet right to the edge of her desk and waved her wand, and the goblet disappeared with a pop. 

Clever girl. Bella wished she could see the rest of the students' expressions. Muddy turned in her seat to look smugly back at the rest. Her eyes met Bella's, and she paled and turned quickly back around.

"Also," Muddy added. "If you cast a stunner, you'd probably lose all the glasses you'd just conjured, _ and _ the stunner would be weaker, too. It would take time for your reserves to recover back to full, so it is unwise to have too many active conjurations. But it is not _ dangerous. _Our magic is too resilient to be ruined by our own stupid decisions."

Class was dismissed promptly at five 'till, and the students filed out, chattering among themselves. Bella stayed sitting, preferring not to stumble visibly.

So did Muddy. Potter looked Bella straight in the eye as he walked out, the Weasel following closely on his heels. 

McGonagall looked up from her desk when the room quieted, and then she sighed heavily and scooped the parchments into her bag and swept out of the room as well, leaving the two of them in the room. 

Muddy pushed up from sitting and turned to face Bella. Her eyes were red. 

"What is it you want from me?" she asked Bella quietly. 

Bella stood, checking the door, which was closed. "What do you want from me?" she returned, slurring. 

"I just want you to be - to be a good person, to be kind and good to me. But I don't know…"

Bella had hated herself before, but not quite as bitterly as she did in this moment. "If that's what you want, you'd be better served waiting for the next lifetime. I am," she made a sweeping gesture down her own body. "Utterly ruined for this one."

"Sometimes I think you're not," Muddy said softly. 

"You already said you're not my redemption. So let it go. Stop trying to be. You'll sleep better."

"I answered you," Muddy said. "So why don't you answer me now?"

_ I just want you to love me, but you can't. _The realization of it shook Bella to the core. She hadn't fully thought that, not since they first kissed, but felt suddenly and deeply that it was true. 

"I am too drunk to be having this conversation," she told Muddy, and went out the door, walking too quickly for Muddy to catch her. She shouldn't keep the Thestrals waiting. 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Interlude between Acts I and II

Abdul fingered the safety of his machine rifle. _ On-off-on-off. _

Hakem the Peacemaker was speaking to the Muggle leader. Muhammad Omar, leader of the Taliban and thus the mujahideen, whose country was about to be invaded by the Americans. Abdul stared down his counterparts on the other side - twice the number of Hakem's honor guard, the only number the Muggles had agreed to. 

"You must recognize that we could be invaluable. We know for a fact that the Muggles have British wizards on their side."

It was a gambit of desperation. Muhammad was having nothing of it. 

"The Americans would never allow such a thing. As we could never allow you to march alongside our soldiers. Do not be a fool. You asked for a reconciliation between us when you united the _ sahir _under your rule." This was a common misperception - that Hakem had absolute authority, that he was a dictator - really he was more the figurehead than anything else. But it was true that under his beneficent authority, the infighting had ceased at last. 

"They will smash you like ants," Hakem told him, pounding a fist on the table, which rattled from the impact. Hakem was a physically imposing man, and age seemed only to enhance his rippling muscles. His face was also striking, with pale eyes and high cheekbones. "They are looking only for blood."

"We will not befoul our glorious army with the likes of you."

"They will come in two weeks' time." Muhammad seemed to pale at the news. "That much knowledge I will grant you, as a token of our goodwill. And if you come begging after that, we will not offer such a generous alliance."

"Allah will protect us. We will not forsake Him and make a deal with the devil."

A niggling sense of unease came over Abdul. He leaned forward. _ Click _ went the safety of his gun. _ Pay very close attention, _ he remembered. _ You must not miss a single word. _Wasn’t he doing that, though? Why was he so uncomfortable? He knew that he was forgetting something - something important. He shivered. 

Later, in their encampment, Abdul was returning from prayer when he saw that Hakem had gathered the rest of the group. He jogged over to them, holding his rug tight to his chest. 

“I had forgotten the time,” Hakem apologized. Abdul just nodded, keeping his eyes down by force of habit. None of the rest prayed. “We waited for you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Abdul said quietly. 

“We will leave for Mazar tomorrow. I think we need to vacate the city, and spread the word to the rest to vacate, too. Our seers have made it clear that it will be the first point of assault.”

Nearly all of them lived in Mazar. It was the hub of the wizarding world here, humble though it may be. 

“And then, we go for our children,” Hakem said grimly. 

A shout rose up in the gathered group, all fifteen of them. The niggling feeling grew stronger in Abdul’s mind, and he clutched his rug closer to his chest. _ Return immediately. _ He was obeying. He must obey. 

“Home to the new wife.” Omar jostled Abul’s arm as the group dispersed to eat dinner. 

“Wife,” Abdul repeated, feeling his jaw lock in place. “Yes.” Omar must have been expecting more joy from Abdul, but Abdul could not bring himself to lie, and he turned away. 

They reached Mazar at dusk the next week, the caravan of battered old trucks leaving behind plumes of black smoke in the air. They descended into the haze of cooking fires, and Abdul breathed deeply the smell of this place, his home for years now. Abdul’s heart leapt in his chest, but it was not excitement that filled his chest. It was dread. 

The wizarding compound was bustling. Witchlight flickered brightly along the narrow lanes between stucco walls. Foul-smelling water trickled down well-worn grooves in the hot, packed dirt of the streets. 

They stopped just outside the compound’s main courtyard. The stalls of merchants, mostly Muggle, were just closing now. A tall pile of melons was being painstakingly deconstructed to line the bottom of a cart for transport. The smell of meat and naan filled the air. Abdul’s stomach turned over. He was almost home. 

He shouldered his bag and trudged from the group, trusting that Hakem knew how to summon him when he was required. His steps were plodding, reluctant. _ Return immediately, _ the voice echoed in his mind, and he stood stock-still for a brief moment, closing his eyes. A passerby shouldered into him, and Abdul stumbled forward, the motion inexorable. He breathed deeply the air, and then he pushed open the door to his tiny home. 

_ She _ was sitting there in the corner, face uncovered, curly black hair piled tall on her head. Her legs were crossed. He turned to close the door quickly, feeling the space close in around him.

He dropped to his knees a few feet from her, head bowed. Something in him shuddered at the _ shirk, _ at bowing to anyone who was not Allah. But he was not in his right mind. He was under her spell. That was the niggling feeling in the back of his mind. His mind was not his own.

He remembered the meeting with the British. _ She _had been there, silent as the Minister offered platitudes and nothing more. He could not bring himself to look at her, and yet he still stared at her from the corner of his eye. She was a goddess to him, the only woman in a long time that he’d seen with face bare. She seemed nearly naked to him then. Now, he still could not bear to look at her, and she seemed even more naked here, in his home. He glimpsed a bare foot, leading to an equally bare leg. He closed his eyes. 

Something hard and narrow pressed on the bottom of his chin, and he allowed her to force his face up.

“Open your eyes,” she murmured. He could not resist.

Her shoulders were bare, too. Her eyes were black as night. The lamplight flickered, casting his shadow across her body. 

_ I was born Abdul-Din in Kabul. My family was wealthy; my father owned a chain of businesses in the city. They waited as long as they could. They gave me every chance to control the power in my veins. But no amount of time could do that; only teaching, and they decided when I was eleven years old that they could not keep me safe and secret any longer. _

_ They left me in Mazari Sharif, along the edges of the Wizarding compound. They told me to keep walking, and not to look back. I knew in my heart of hearts that I would never see them again, but I could not think it. It took me years to realize that they did not plan to retrieve me. I still think sometimes that I will go to Kabul and find them. But they are not wizards, and I am not like them. I belong here. _

_ Every day, I make my oblations to Allah. I do not feel His presence like I do the magic in my veins. Raw power, destruction, rage fills me, but not against the Muggles that raised me, and loved me well enough to keep me alive and safe through my childhood. I have a new family now, and they forsake Allah, which I could never do. God is good, and I am His servant. _

_ I am one of the most trusted of Hakem's honor guard. I owe everything to his mercy. And he has great tolerance for my devotions. He can see that my loyalty to Allah means that I am loyal, also, to him. _

_ What you have done to me, dark goddess, I will avenge. I am not your servant, not am I helpless. You use me as you might a puppet. But I am stronger than you know. _


	15. Act II: The Weight of Air

Bellatrix did not like being wrong. But she was not too proud to admit, if only to herself, when the evidence supported no other conclusion. And after a month in Mazar, she had concluded this much - the sixteen year old boy she'd chosen for her solo infiltration mission did not, in fact, know how to magically track a Horcrux. 

"I _ will _ kill you," she hissed to the boy in the privacy of his tiny hut. He grimaced, eyes wide and fearful, ducking his head, hands fidgeting with some small pieces of string in his hands. He was weaving one of those charms they used here, she could see that much, but she was not at all worried about that. 

"I don't understand your words," he muttered finally. A common refrain in the past month. 

Bella hissed and pointed her wand at her own throat. "Tell me how to track the Horcruxes," she repeated. "Tell me now, before I kill you."

"There is no way," he said. His hands kept twisting, tucking the strands of string under each other, one after another. "Kill me if you must. I cannot tell you."

"They won't resurrect you," she threatened.

"I don't even have one!" he protested quietly. 

"You have been utterly useless as a spy," she told him, which was not strictly true. But her time had run out here. The Afghani wizards were abandoning Mazar. It was scarce days before the planned invasion date, which Bella had known months ago. And Bella had inserted herself for one purpose only. "You were to _ ask _ your superiors, and you have done _ nothing!" _Green lightning spouted from the end of her borrowed wand. 

"There is no way to track them. Only that they exist, dark mistress." It was his preferred form of address to her, and usually it gave her a slight sense of satisfaction. Today, it only made her more angry. 

"You have battled each other for fifty years! You cannot tell me that in all that time, you never found a way to trace another's Horcrux."

"If someone found a way, it would threaten their own -"

"You make Horcruxes of grains of sand!" Bella spat. She paced around him. "You make them upon every battlefield death!"

"A resurrection is not easy -"

"Your ancestors' ghosts haunt every ruin! They watch you as you sleep! And not a single person has thought -"

"Allah will protect me," the boy muttered under his breath, and then he started one of those damnable chants he was so fond of.

_ "Shut up!" _ Bella shrieked, and she paced away, knocking down the single stool that comprised his furnishings. She continued to pace, and he continued to chant. The _ Imperius _ had faded, clearly, not that it mattered any more. 

She calmed her mind, focusing on the memory charm. It was not her strongest skill. She preferred less… subtle methods. But she could not actually kill the boy. It would excite far too much suspicion. Bella was not stupid enough to underestimate Hakem the Peacemaker, who loved Abdul the Nameless. 

_ Your wife has fled back to her family. You loved her and are sorry that she left, but hope that she is pregnant and will return to you. She is dark-skinned, and her name is Larmina. _

She turned back to him, and he closed his eyes. 

  
  


“Wotcher, Kingsley,” Bella said brightly to the man. He spun, eyes wide. She cackled.

They were in an open-air villa on the edge of Mazar, the temporary base of operations for the Auror contingent sent as a scouting force. She thought she’d find him here, but was lucky that she found him alone, gazing out into the maze of short adobe homes, brightly painted, that made up the cityscape of this tiny metropolis. She had apparated directly behind him. 

Dozens of Aurors were likely rushing to intercept her, but she stayed there, looking him in the eye, and the tension in his shoulders faded. “Bellatrix. You're back.”

“With valuable intel,” she told him, winking. “You don’t think I ran off only to come back empty-handed?”

He frowned deeply. “We thought you ran off because your trial was scheduled,” he told her brusquely. 

“Incorrect. Why would I have returned now?”

The Aurors from within the three-story building had tumbled over each other to reach them, and many hands reached out to grip her upper arms. One man snatched her wand which was held loosely. She surrendered, allowing them to lead her away into a bare room even smaller than her faux husband’s had been. She’d stayed only a mile from here, undetected. 

There were no windows, one door, and a spare cot of straw that was placed on the ground. She collapsed down onto it. Out of habit, she lay with her feet toward the wall, imagining that there was a pillow there and it was Sirius’s. She crossed her hands over her stomach, studying the cracks in the ceiling, and waited for her doom to come. 

It wasn’t much later that an Auror returned with a set of heavy manacles that nearly shone with magical ire. She raised her hands up without rising, and he stepped up to her after hesitating briefly. 

“Scared, boy?” she asked him, but he didn’t answer. Manacles safely on, she let him guide her through long corridors into a room that had clearly been converted into a war room. Scrolls and maps were still piled haphazardly in a corner, but she was placed into a chair in the center of the room, and after a short wait a line of Aurors filed into the room. Shacklebolt took up the rear, and she focused on him. He met her gaze without flinching.

“Back on the stand, it seems,” Bella chortled. She knew that she was less stable than she’d been the first time they’d called on her, when they offered her the chance to volunteer. But really, who had she been kidding, all that time? She had held onto something that was only water, stood on a platform of stone that had turned as quickly into sand under her, imagined the possibility of redemption like a fool. Thought that she could find a place in the world, only to find that the only place the world had was not the right shape to fit her. 

“Report,” David, the Auror who had led her first expedition here, said softly. He was seated in the center of the panel, and she redirected her attention to him. She remembered a certain fondness, the generosity of a sated wolf when observing its unsuspecting prey. Should she destroy him now, or follow him and wait until she felt more hungry? Why waste such a gentle beast, only to taste shed blood? But it was so sweet. 

“I inserted myself into the wizards based here. I put one of the Peacemaker’s bodyguards under Imperius and had him spy for me, staying at his home.” She opened her jacket, revealing a long line of bottles filled with silvery, viscous fluid. “He gave over his memories to me. You can watch them all.” 

“You acted without a directive. Were you discovered?”

“I was not,” Bella said fiercely, sitting straighter, placing an elbow on each knee and leaning forward. “The wizards here know that the invasion comes in two days. They are fleeing. There were unable to appeal to the Caliphate Muhammad. They hoped to ally with him, despite the fact that we took their children. Now, they plan to strike at our heart, and I do not know exactly the mechanism but I know they are certain that they will reach Britain and they may know where the children are being held.”

“They march on Hogwarts?” David clarified. 

“That is their plan, yes,” Bella told him. She looked down at her hands, noticing that her clasp had become white-knuckled. She hadn’t known that the children were there. How could the Ministry be so stupid? If Bella had known, perhaps she would not have given her wand up so willingly. 

“And they plan to offer no resistance here, in Mazar?”

“A few will,” Bella told him. “A few, who remember Soviet rule here. Those without families to lose. Most of the wizards in Mazar did not lose their children, but the Peacemaker is sensitive to their jeopardy. Although he has no children of his own.” 

“So we must stay,” David said, leaning back. 

“What will you do with - will you take the children away? Evacuate Hogwarts?” Bella clenched her jaw.

“That is not your concern,” Shacklebolt said, speaking as he preferred to out of the shadows in the back of the room, beyond the vision of the Aurors but visible to Bella. “You’ll return to London, and this time we won’t offer you the luxury of house arrest. Your trial begins when you arrive.”

Bella scoffed, staring him down. She was not afraid of their punishment for her, not when Azkaban was off the table. They could hold nothing over her head, except to keep her away from Hogwarts, if it was truly threatened. 

True to their word, they moved her quickly by Portkey back to London, where she was held in a similar cell, manacles still tight around her wrists. She’d become accustomed to the sensation. Fourteen years in Azkaban was long enough to make the weight of the cuffs nearly normal to her. The biting sensation of the metal into her wrists grounded her. She thought, not for the first nor the last time, of Hermione Granger. 

It was not Hermione that visited her first. It was Andy. They met in a different room, over a table, with Ron Weasley standing tall and broad-shouldered behind Andy. His narrow eyes and the worn creases in his cheeks distracted her from her sister, who was looking somber and judgemental as always. 

They played a waiting game, eying each other, until finally Andy spoke. “You said that you had a plan, to lure us into complacency, but I hadn’t imagined that it would mean that you’d ghost us all.”

“Ghost?” Bella sputtered. “What is that supposed to mean?” 

“You left unannounced, and didn’t even send a letter. I called it into the Aurors when I had no other choice. Bella, you were under house arrest, and in my care! They told me that you enlisted. So tell me, dearest sister, how it is that you have landed yourself in chains once again.”

Bella stared at her broodingly, somewhat unable but mostly unwilling to offer an excuse or an explanation.

Andy sighed, pushing a stack of paper toward Bella. She glimpsed the distinctive curves of Hermione’s script. “Your letters,” she said softly. “I wrote her when they first arrived, but…” 

“They tell me my trial is tomorrow. I need to - ” Bella was unable to finish the sentence. 

“If you intend to ask me and Ronald Weasley to break you out of here, you have another thing coming,” Andy said archly.

“The Afghani march on Hogwarts,” Bella blurted, and Weasley startled at that. “I told the Aurors, and Kingsley, but I am not - there is much at Hogwarts that I value dearly.”

“You have an interesting way of showing it,” Andy said. Her lip twisted. 

“You have no idea what has happened,” Bella spat fiercely, and Andy leaned back, looking alarmed. “Do not begin to try to judge me.”

“Do you know what happened?” Andy asked her, a challenge glinting in her eye. She looked down meaningfully at the letters, and then she stood and departed.

Weasley escorted her back to her cell. He cleared his throat, but she did not look at him. When his hand was on the door handle, he looked back at her, timid. 

“If you have something to say to me, spit it out, Weasley.”

“You’ve hurt my friend,” he started, and then flushed. 

“Oh, boo-hoo,” Bella taunted. “Since when is this the first teenage love that ends in heartbreak?”

He put his palm flat against the door, leaning forward, forehead nearly touching the door. “You don’t understand her,” he said slowly. “Hermione is more loyal than the most - than any Hufflepuff. She’s cleverer than any Ravenclaw, and braver than anyone who’s ever - who’s ever lived, probably. But she’s also complicated, and if anyone would understand her motives it would be a _ Slytherin.” _ The last word came out in a pained hiss, and his face turned back toward her, bright red and glaring. “If this is some complicated plot to - I don’t know, to use her or manipulate her or do something, anything, that might hurt her more…” 

“I’m as innocent as a lamb in this, Weasley,” Bella told him. She was shackled, bound magically and physically, nearly helpless in this situation. But more than that, somehow she did want him to understand her. He was Hermione's friend, and despite the distance and the deeply felt sense of loss, she could not forget the feeling of _ it, _ their closeness when they touched, the sense that the inexorable bond was unyielding but also utterly right. 

And then her mind turned to their last conversation, and the one before that. She remembered being raw and broken, turned inside-out. She remembered feeling used. _ What is it you want from me? _Hermione had asked her. Bella could remember the exact look in her eye when she asked that question. And Bella remembered that Hermione had never answered hers: Why had she come to Bella in the depths of her sickness, day after day? Perhaps the answer to that question could have saved them - saved her. 

“It is your friend that did this to herself,” Bella told him, and he flushed even more deeply.

“I can’t believe that,” he said, and then another Auror rounded a bend in the hallway and he pushed open the door to her cell, nodding to her. His eyes followed her in, and did not waver as the door shut grindingly behind him. 

The letters were solid in her hands. She placed them on the cot, which this time was supported by a thin metal frame. The weight of the letters felt heavy on her chest. 

She collapsed onto the cot. There were no cracks in the ceiling to trace. 

Andy had looked so meaningfully at the letters. Bella remembered her impatience, so many months ago, to open Muddy’s letters. She was hesitant now, as she had been then. Unopened, the letters could hold anything. Open, they were a threat to everything Bella had told herself through the indeterminant winter of the equator, and the scattered rainstorms that brought the spring. She could not read what Hermione wrote to her. 

But she could not ignore what Andy had meant when she looked at the letters. There was something hidden inside, something that was worth Andy’s freedom, perhaps.

She ran her fingernail down the seal of the first letter, caressing it. The Granger seal - a new one, bold of the girl to make. Bella wondered whether she’d made it before, or after, she’d found her soulmate. Surely she realized that her soulmate would have a name, too. 

The seal was a furred mammal, with a snout like a dog’s, and three crosses above. Perhaps the Grangers had been religious, because it looked Catholic. Each letter bore that sigil. Hermione must have made a ring. 

Bella broke the seals of each letter methodically, and lay them each out before her. There was no order to them. There were five in total. She pieced together the sequence, feeling somehow removed from the action. 

_ Bella, _

_ We have not understood each other. I know that if we have the chance to, we will find a way back to where we were before, which was ever so far away from where we could be. Please - I know that there has been something lost here, and I am willing to bridge this gap if you will meet me halfway. _

_ I will come to Grimmauld Sunday. Please see me, if you would. I’d like to just hold you. I think that will solve every grief, imagined and real. _

_ Yours, _

_ Hermione _

  
  


_ Bella, _

_ Andromeda wrote me and said that you are gone. I hope that you have not enlisted. I thought that we understood each other. I know that I could have been more welcoming at Hogwarts, but I was glad that you took that position. It is only Saturday. I hope that my owl will reach you, wherever you are now. Andy did not know. If you are Untraceable, I am not sure that I will forgive you. _

_ \- H _

  
  


_ You are gone, the letters unopened. I have them in a stack before me. I am sitting here, at the desk that you liked to smoke at, in Sirius’s room. It is difficult to imagine it as anything other than the place that we first decided to trust in the mark. Or, at least I know that was what I decided here. _

_ I feel betrayed by you. I feel somehow as if I have done something wrong, but I do not know what it is. I am angry - I admit it to you, if nobody else. Something that you might not know about me is that I am proud. That is why I hate that you call me by Muddy. That is probably also why I am always ahead, in everything. Minerva says that I feel that I have something to prove. But I have always known that I was extraordinary. And I do not accept this - to be left hanging, to have something so significant and important to me tossed to the wind. I don’t accept it, and yet you have given me no choice but to do so. _

_ I can only imagine what you felt when you sat here and decided to abandon everything. What made you so afraid of this? I can’t help but blame myself. _

_ I know that you went to dinner at the Malfoys’ on Friday night. You disappeared on Saturday, just yesterday. It is maddening to think that you were here only 24 hours before this moment, and if I had come I might have caught you here. I’ll ask Draco what you talked about. I can’t accept this, but maybe if I could understand it - maybe if you’d give me the chance to - I would feel more at peace with it. _

_ \- H _

  
  


_ Bella, _

_ I do not know why I still want to write you. All Hallow’s has passed. The new year has come and gone. We approach the spring. The Aurors will not tell us what you are doing now. I worry that they do not know. I worry that you have flung off every mortal coil, and thrown yourself into the depths, where I cannot reach you. I worry that you are dead, except that I would know if you were dead. _

_ I think that this has driven me to the brink of insanity. Harry and Ron left Hogwarts to join the war. They are too impatient; we have only a few months left until the NEWTs, until our education is formal and complete. Yet I also hope that they will write me, tell me that they saw you, somewhere in Afghanistan or maybe Saudi Arabia, which is an ally to the United States and perhaps where you were assigned. I have done much research into the geopolitics of the region, although I do not intend to follow the boys there. That notion seems infantile to me, although perhaps it is because it is what they chose to do. _

_ I know that this has only been a few months. I try to remind myself that you waited for forty-seven years for me, and four months must be nothing to you. I tell myself that I can’t lose you, because the mark does not lie, and there is nothing either of us can do to shed it. Can we? Perhaps I have not tried hard enough. Perhaps there might be a way to fall out of this, what came so easily to both of us. Yet I am not certain that I wish to. _

_ Are you afraid? You shouldn’t be. Do you imagine our connection to be only sexual? Perhaps it is, but I can’t believe that. Every night, I dream of you. So I suppose that this letter is really a prayer. And if somehow the Untraceability has faded, and perhaps you are imprisoned by those mujahideen, I leave you this small charm. It will not fail you. _

_ \- H _

  
  


_ Bella, _

_ Come back to me. I know that you have the power to go as you please. I know that you are the most gifted witch who lives. I know, now, that you have disappeared into God knows where, perhaps the desert, but perhaps the amazon or the frigid north, and I am desperate for you. I have sent this letter by dragon, because owls cannot fly the length of the world. And when you come, I will not forgive you for this, but you must come, now. I do not know what I will do if you ignore me again. _

_ \- H _


	16. Chapter 16

Bellatrix floated as mist a short distance away from the gathered Afghan wizards, listening. 

Hermione’s charm had worked perfectly. Bella had only to blow the runes off the page and breathe them in deeply, and she’d slipped easily through the keyhole to her room, the manacles clattering loudly on the stone floor behind her. She found that she had been kept in the Ministry, but in this new form she did not need to bother with the lifts. She moved through the shafts like a puff of smoky wind, threading her way upward, slipping across the top of the tall antechamber and out the door.

She did not know how long the spell would last, but the mist travelled more quickly than even a broom would. It was comfortable. Moving through the cloudy night sky was nearly meditative. She quickly moved upward, losing sight of the ground below, and transport was timeless. It must have only been an hour before she was in Scotland, and she made her way silently along the Hogwarts Express railway, flitting to the old castle’s grounds.

Lights shone from the windows. She passed by the windows to the Great Hall, noting that a few students lingered after their dinner. _ Fools, _ she thought to herself. They had not evacuated Hogwarts. What did they think? That it would take time for the Afghan to make their way here? That they did not know where the children were kept?

There were at least fifty of the wizards. She found them quickly, lurking as they were only a few hundred meters from the Forbidden Forest’s edge. They muttered quietly to each other, gripping their handmade talismans. A few had wands; most did not. Bella dared not approach close enough to overhear their conversations. Surely Hermione’s charm would wear off soon. A deep part of her chest felt panic at being trapped in this form. She did not know the words to dismiss it. But she was not quite ready for it to go, so still she waited. 

The Afghans were waiting, too. Bella glimpsed Hakem amongst them; and Abdul, who stood close by. So they were not waiting for their leader. What did they wait for?

The gathered wizards seemed to tense, looking toward Hogwarts. Their scattered mutterings died out. Bella followed their gazes to the Hogwarts gates, which were slowly opening.

A group of children emerged. Bella flitted quickly across the foggy lawn to them, circling from above. Twenty children held twenty others at wand-point. There were ten children without wands, likely the Muggles, heading up the bunch. Behind them, Minerva McGonagall frantically whispered with another teacher, wands drawn but pointed to the ground. 

Bella hovered close to the ground and thought, _ Dismissed. Mist spell dismissed. Dispel! Put me back in my own form! _It did not work. 

And then she saw the distinctive, bushy mane of Hermione, being led by one of the older boys, who did not touch her. Like many of the rest, she was in a sleeping gown. It was white and flowing, thin, and Hermione clutched her arms in front of her chest, walking barefoot on the doubtless chill grass. Bella had the brief thought that she liked Hermione in that white dress, like a virgin bride. She brushed the thought off quickly. 

A few Patronuses burst from Hogwarts toward London. Where were Hermione’s Auror bodyguards? Bella thought that they would be somewhere in Hogwarts, but there was nothing but a few teachers there to protect the children. 

Bella screamed soundlessly, circling the group. They progressed slowly across the lawn toward the forest, where the Afghan wizards waited. Bella felt a hopeless sense of doom settling on her as they drew ever nearer. 

Hermione was one of the oldest of the group, but a few of the others might know enough of dueling to fight. Why weren’t they resisting? Had they been drugged? And what of the teachers? Perhaps Aurors were approaching under heavy concealment spells, and they would soon spring a trap to save the children. 

It seemed increasingly unlikely. They were so close to the forest now! Why wouldn’t the mist spell run out? Even wandless, Bella would do more than the teachers were. What was happening? It seemed like madness to Bella. She burst with frustrated impotence. 

Suddenly, one of the captive children shouted. Bella flew quickly to her, seeing that she’d wrested the wand from the other child and dropped down to the floor, rolling. It was Jade West, her daughter - a third year, and bolder than all the rest. 

Hermione moved then, too. She spun, dodging a hex from her captor, and dove for a smaller boy’s wand. She snatched it easily, and then there were shouts from the woods and the scene erupted in chaos. 

Bella dove down, surrounding the head of the boy Hermione was dueling. It didn’t seem to help, but Hermione didn’t need the help, easily stunning the boy and spinning to the next. A few more of the Hogwarts students had wrested wands back; some of the Afghan children were stunned, and Jade West was on one knee, laying a complex pattern of jinxes that kept catching the less-skilled wizards by surprise. It wasn’t just pride speaking when she bragged to Bella about her dueling in the fall; she really _ was _good. 

The adults from the forest entered the fray, preceded by a shower of talismans which exploded dangerously, filling the air with smoke and fire. From the direction of the Whomping Willow, Bella saw a gathering of robed figures sprinting toward them. 

Hermione shouted, “Run! Hogwarts students, follow me!” She scooped a first- or second-year up into her left arm, a surprising feat of strength, and ran toward the Aurors coming from the Whomping Willow. Bella flitted behind her, watching as the Afghan wizards seemed to completely ignore the other students. 

Jade was on the ground, stunned and bleeding. Bella’s heart howled in an unexpected feeling, and she went back into the fray. The Afghan wizards were gathering their children up in their arms, ignoring the Hogwarts students who had not followed Hermione, clumping together tightly. There were tears. Bella turned away, moving back toward Hogwarts, which McGonagall and four other teachers were leaving. 

  
  


It was a long wait later, and she heard them before she saw them. Hermione’s voice was loud in the mix. “Where were you, really? Tell us that you didn’t know this was coming.” Bella wrapped her arms more tightly around her scrawny legs, folded into her chest against the wall of the entry corridor to Hogwarts. The mist spell had finally worn off. The Afghan wizards had successfully escaped with their children, although Bella did not care enough to watch how they went. She was frustrated, utterly defeated. Aimless, having again been ejected from the place she tried to make fit her. 

“Surely you must understand, Miss Granger, that -” 

Weasley’s voice interposed. “Black warned us, but nobody thought that they had any access points, or means of communication.”

“Then it is fortunate that I stayed behind, is it not?” Hermione’s voice was shrill, but not with panic. She spoke with some measure of authority. Bella’s heart thrilled darkly. 

They rounded the corner, immediately glimpsing her. The clump of students, Aurors, and teachers paused, and Hermione’s face showed her shock amidst the furious flush of her cheeks. Bella remembered her in the woods, during the Death Eater sting so long ago. She remembered being distracted by her face during combat. It was not the soul mark that did that - it was just the girl’s beauty - yet the mark throbbed on Bella’s shoulder, a satisfaction filling her chest that did not seem to belong to her. 

Aurors flowed around Hermione as they watched each other, wrenching her back to her feet. “Bellatrix Black,” one of them hissed loudly in her ear. His breath was sour, foul, and hot on her cheek. 

“Wait,” Hermione said, her voice soft but carrying. The Aurors ignored her, dragging Bellatrix back toward the Whomping Willow to apparate her back into prison. Bellatrix did not resist, but she met Hermione’s eyes, looking back to see Hermione standing there at the entryway, wand held loosely, watching her go. 

“How did you escape?” one of the Aurors asked her as they towed her away, but she did not answer him. They threw her back into her cell with the manacles on her hands and feet. This time an Auror was stationed inside with her, standing straight and broad, his eyes watchful as Bella turned in the cot away from him to study the wall. Sleep did not come; the morning brought her trial. 

Like Cissy’s trial, Bella’s was presided upon by a tribunal. Hers was an entirely new cast: a Muggleborn or half-blood, Yolanda Ivy; Perseus Crouch, who had always been considered the weaker uncle; and Marcus Flint, a child in his early twenties at the oldest, a brute by the look of his eyes. Bella shifted in her heavy manacles, which had been locked to the chair, refusing to look out at the crowded antichamber. Despite herself, she glimpsed Narcissa and her son in the front row. Would they be her witnesses? She had not had time to plan anything. Even if she had time, she thought she probably wouldn’t have planned much. This would come as it may.

It was to be a circus. She leaned back and gave herself over to it. She felt the familiar tickle of the unwanted observation, the _ scry, _ at the back of her head. Unwillingly, she looked up toward the audience, and glimpsed Muddy at the back. She was wearing a dark blue collared shirt which set her flushed cheeks in stark display. It was mid-morning, and she must have excused herself from Transfiguration class. It was an aside, but some part of Bellatrix was grateful to have her soul mate here. The mark throbbed again, overactive. 

Yolanda Ivy was the speaker, and cleared her throat as she stood. She looked thirty- or fourty-something, always hard to tell with witches, but perhaps Bellatrix’s age if she had aged well. Her voice wavered in some parts. 

“Convicted Death Eater of the First Wizarding War. Served fourteen years in Azkaban for the crime of torturing Alice and Frank Longbottom into insanity, as well as subversive tactics and willing participation in Voldemort’s reign of terror. Unproven murders of two purebloods and five Muggleborn.” They forgot the Muggles; Bella didn’t mind, although it was a little frustrating to realize that the unsubstantiated crimes she’d been tried for when she was twenty-seven would come back now, nearly twenty years later. “Jailbreak from Azkaban; the murder of Sirius Black, her cousin; torture of Hermione Granger; leader of the Snatchers, and therefore responsible for the deaths of the Muggleborn Edward Tonks, her brother-in-law, two pure-bloods, and five half-bloods; directly responsible for the burning of the Weasley estate, the Burrow, and its surrounding grounds; the death of a house-elf formerly in the service of Hogwarts and House Malfoy; suspected intercourse with Voldemort." _ That was unwarranted and crude, _ Bellatrix thought, wincing. “Desertion in the war in Afghanistan. Jailbreak from the Ministry, just yesterday.”

She wished that Muddy was not here for that list of charges. Was she embarrassed by it? Not much, but… perhaps a little. 

Ivy sat, and there was silence in the antechamber until Crouch cleared his throat and said, “You are free to speak, Madam Black, and call any witnesses that you have.”

Bella pulled at her bindings, wishing to stand, but it seemed impossible. “I had no time to prepare a statement or ask for witnesses,” she said to start. “And I was not given my list of charges, so I can’t remember them all.” Someone cleared their throat, and slowly, a parchment with some writing drifted over to hover before her. 

“Splendid,” Bella said shortly, reviewing the list. She realized that her voice boomed through the chamber, and wondered how many people were watching through that remote viewing mechanism. A few months ago, during Narcissa’s trial, she’d been glad for it, but now she was just incensed. The thought of a thousand wizards watching from the comfort of their homes was invasive and disturbing. 

“In order, then.” Bella read from the top. “Death Eater? Yes. Azkaban? Irrelevant, but yes. Did I torture the Longbottoms? Yes, although their insanity was an unintended side-effect, and I have never said otherwise, and I have already served time for that crime, committed long ago by a much younger woman. Jailbreak, yes, although it was not strictly my doing. Sirius was a stunning spell, although I do admit that I thought it would send him through the veil. I did not know what the veil would do to him. 

“Torture of Hermione Granger - well, I do not know what was said during my dear brother-in-law’s trial - assuming that it occured - but I was not able to torture her.” Bella’s eyes strayed up to meet Muddy’s, at the top of the audience. “As you may know, the soul mark does not allow direct harm between those marked, and I share a mark with Granger.” She shrugged her jail shift off her shoulder, revealing the distinctive mark there. “Granger is my soul mate.” She steeled herself, not relishing this. But it was what Narcissa told her to do, on their last meeting at the Malfoy Manor - to lie, and say that it was for the Mudblood that she’d done everything.

_ That _ was the great risk Draco had referred to, during Narcissa’s trial, and it was true that Bella had not noticed the risk even as it was taken. Narcissa failed to mention that Bella turned for her, and not for Muddy. She had held it in her back pocket during her trial, but it had not been needed. It would have been a great boon to Narcissa to say that the death of Voldemort had been instigated by her sister’s love for her. But, Narcissa had balanced the scales as she stood on the stand, and thought that the turning would be more compelling if it was leveraged for Bella’s benefit. 

Bella had listened to her sister. Bella had hated it. But Bella had already decided to leave, because the horrifying realization that Muddy could not love her was enough to drive her from the complacent life that she’d almost accepted. Bella would not grovel, and she could not convince her soul mate to make something of her that she was not. So what if Bella lied now, at court, pretending that Narcissa’s fantasy was real? Muddy knew the truth of it. And what judgement did Bella dread, if not Muddy’s? 

She said, “When I met Granger, after she and Potter and - and Weasley - were captured by our Snatchers, everything changed. I saw the light of redemption. It was Lucius Malfoy that tortured Hermione, because I could not. Every moment thereafter, I was considering my chances, deciding when to turn. When I found my soul mate, I realized that V-” she stumbled, trying to catch her breath, “_ Voldemort’s _ message was false, a lie, something manufactured to lure the Sacred Twenty-Eight into the fold. But Voldemort,” the word came out more naturally, practiced now, “was a half-blood, named Tom Riddle, and I knew that he had Horcruxes that would enable his return if I turned on him too quickly. So I did not, until the time was right. When Narcissa found Potter to be alive, and Voldemort turned to kill them both, I realized that I had my chance. I struck, and I wonder…” She raised her face, deliberately looking out into the audience. “I wonder what you would have done, _ you fools, _ if you had not had a skilled and proficient turncoat on your side. You can’t think that Potter and the students could have won without me? You can’t think that you wouldn’t be ground under the heel of the Dark Lord had I not turned? Do you really think that _ Harry Potter _ could have cast the Killing Curse, and prevailed?”

She let them mull over the question, narrowing her eyes. She could not help but look at Hermione, whose hands were clenched together over her heart. She could not call upon her for this. Hermione knew the truth of it, and would not lie on the stand. Yet, Bella felt a lightening in her heart. She knew that she had been granted the luxury of house arrest because she’d turned on the Dark Lord. The brief opportunity to tutor at Hogwarts had been predicated upon the fact of her turning. McGonagall had as much as said that she granted Bella access to the Hogwarts grounds because of Hermione Granger, because she thought that Bella had changed. Because of the mark. That was her chance at redemption, however hollow. The romance of the mark. 

"It was my soul mark that turned me. It was Hermione Granger's influence that did it. And I will never deny that." Bellatrix leveled a look at the tiers of her audience, skipping over Naricssa and Draco. "I am glad that I had a chance at redemption. And if nobody else could, the fact that I struck down the Dark Lord? It should give me reason enough to move in this world. It should give me access to a wand. Although I did leave the army, I brought back valuable intel, which the Minister of Magic can confirm if not share the specific details.

"I tell you, my heart was not pure before, but it is now. I never _ fraternized," _ she spat, "not with anyone, let alone the Dark Lord. I am on your side, and I will remain there. You are entering a new war, and you cannot ignore the contributions of myself and others toward that. You can't deny that you need us. And we cannot deny that we need you. I am willing to give over my freedom to you, in order to further your causes. So I would ask, despite the _ mistakes of my past, _ that you might give me some benefit of the doubt."

Bella settled in her chair, thinking to herself that she'd at least articulated the possibility of her future uses in this world. And then she listened, as they brought the witnesses for the prosecution out. The unseen scry faded somewhere in between into an uncertain feeling of observation which was probably the remote viewing protocol and not the Dark Lord or His servant. 

Neville Longbottom spoke at length on the hardship he'd suffered in not having his parents, although it seemed that he had not unduly suffered for it, not to Bella at least. The next witness, and the next, spoke on the brutality of the Snatchers' tactics. A long panel of a dozen witnesses spent the balance of the day discussing the brutality of the Death Eaters' methods, with the sometimes explicit and sometimes implicit angle that it was Bella's influence that tipped the scales. The tactics in the First Wizarding War were not so brutal, they said. It was Bella's command over the majority of the army that tipped the balance toward unreasonable application of force. 

Balls stirred, hoping to rebut the arguments held against her. No opportunity was offered to her, and no witnesses stood on her behalf at the end of it. But at least there was this - nobody of any note spoke against her - not Potter, or the Weasel, nor Shacklebolt himself. He'd promised to witness on her behalf, but perhaps her prison break of just yesterday had changed his mind. She could not begrudge him that. 

The tribunal thanked the participants, and let the trial end with no further testimony, stating that they would bring the outcomes to the full Wizangamot upon the next dawn. Bella was escorted out first.


	17. Chapter 17

Hermione slid into the metal chair across from Bella’s, looking reluctant. The Auror stationed at her shoulder was closer than Weasley had been, nearly looming over her. Bella ignored him, but Hermione couldn’t seem to manage the feat, glancing over her shoulder with a slight frown.

Bella studied her, the long curve of her neck, the darkness of her eyes under her expressive eyebrows. It had been a long night after the public trial, and a long day today; she’d had trouble sleeping, and kept drifting in and out of a restless and unproductive doze. She'd been summoned without warning from her room this evening, and hadn't known the name of her visitor until she arrived. She waited for the girl to speak. 

"A return letter would have been nicer," Hermione said at last. 

Bella shrugged. She studied her own hands, clasped loosely on the table before her. 

"What did you plan? To take on the Afghani single-handedly?"

"I couldn't, anyway," Bella mumbled, frustration flaring again.

“Shacklebolt was supposed to be your witness, but a rogue operative I think is not the same as a volunteer for the war,” Hermione informed her crisply.

“So seems to be the sentiment,” Bella agreed. 

“Did they really give you no time to prepare?” Hermione’s voice held an unexpected note of gentleness. 

“Not much to prepare for, anyway.”

“You didn’t even call on Narcissa. Or Harry.”

Bella looked up sharply. “Was he there?”

“Of course he was, Bella.” Hermione studied her, pushing back on her seat. Her Auror shadow looked sharply down at her; the motion almost brought their bodies into contact, he was so close. He took a short step away from her.

“You gave them basically no evidence that you’ve done anything right at all.”

“They can draw on prior testimony,” Bella said, raising her chin. She mirrored Hermione’s pose, pushing away from the table, manacles clattering loudly. 

“Instead, the Wizangamot is calling for testimony behind closed doors. Harry and Narcissa went today.” Hermione’s voice lowered. “And they’ve asked for me tomorrow.”

And _ that _ was why she was here. Bella’s heart dropped a little. She wished that she didn’t feel so disappointed. 

She didn’t respond, and Hermione continued. “At least they are considering the case you made for yourself, or they wouldn’t have gone through the effort. But I have no idea what they will ask me.”

“You know my angle,” Bella said sullenly. Her entire argument had rested upon the idea that her soulmate had been her redemption. She had expressly avoided calling upon Hermione to testify, because that would have meant that she was asking Hermione to lie. 

"So what would you like me to say? When they ask me if I've - if I've even heard from you since you left in October? It's been _ five months, _Bellatrix."

"Tell them the truth, I suppose," Bella said, shrugging. 

"And Andromeda has now been accused of smuggling you some means of escaping," Hermione added. Well, at least Hermione's letters had been turned to mist along with the rest of her, and Bella had burned them wandlessly before she was apprehended again. "You have done nothing but dig your hole deeper, Bella, and I have no idea why." Bella looked at her closely, wondering at the waver in her voice. Was that a hint of a tear in her eye?

"I'm being watched," Bella hissed at her, abruptly deciding to tell her the truth. Hermione startled, jolting off whatever train of thought had led her to tears. "It is the Dark Lord, seeking His revenge against me, and I am sure that that my clock is ticking. _ That _ is why I left, Muddy." Bella bit her tongue, too slow to catch the word before it escaped her lips. And she'd improved so much. There was nothing for it now, though. "Aside from the fact that there was nothing keeping me here. I am sure, absolutely certain, that He still has a Horcrux, and He is going to kill me the next chance He has."

"You're mistaken," Hermione said softly, but she looked sallow and shocked. "We destroyed them all."

"Can you even imagine living like this - every moment, looking over your shoulder for the assassin's knife? He found me easily in the desert. He finds me, wherever I go. I am haunted. You can't tell me that I should have stayed here, your _ tamed pet, _ and not gone searching for answers there?"

"Did you find them, Bella?" Hermione's lips were a thin line, resigned. 

"Perhaps I was not looking for the right ones," Bella admitted. 

"You're not tamed. You've proven that much, at the very least." Hermione looked down at her own hands in her lap. 

"You wanted me to be." Bella could not tell what emotion filled her chest. "And I tried, Muddy. I did try."

Hermione sighed, and despite herself Bella felt her eyes filling with answering tears. Damn the soul mark for making this feel like another bridge burned, although they only re-hashed what had already happened between them. 

"Why do you think I wanted to tame you?" Hermione said at last. The glare was back with a fury. Something in Bella's chest leapt in response. 

"You didn't?"

"I only ever wanted what I thought would be better for you! I never tried to change you. When did I even ask you to do anything, except _ not to go to war? _ And yet that is the one thing you decided you _ had to _ do. Without even leaving a note, or saying goodbye. I came on Sunday to find your room as empty as it has been since Sirius's death. You sent me no word for five months. What did I do to deserve this treatment? I would have hoped that my soulmate might think that she owed me… at least an explanation!"

_ You can't love me, _ Bella remembered, but the thought seemed somehow hollow in the face of Hermione's admonishment. As if in thinking it, Bella was trying to fend off something much more important and relevant. A core of white hatred filled Bella's chest, burning her from within. 

"You expected better? Did you not hear the list of my charges yesterday? Were you not in the Department when I flung my dear cousin through the Veil and to his death? Do you not understand who I am? And if you do, why does it matter to you if I went without saying goodbye?"

"Don't think that I have forgotten who you are, Bellatrix Black." Hermione stood, leaning over the table, staring her down. "I can't forget who you are, or what you have done. What I don't understand is what you think I did to you, to so quickly and carelessly toss me aside."

She turned on her heel and marched out of the room, leaving Bella with mouth agape, watching her go. 

  
  


“This has reached a laughable extreme,” rumbled the voice of one of the most senior members of the Wizangamot. Yolanda Ivy had never done a particularly good job of remembering all their names - one of the purebloods, Greengrass, or Fawley, perhaps? There were so many of them, and their names had not been important to her before she’d been appointed by the Malfoys to their ancestral position. Perhaps it had been an oversight on their part, to pick her out of the multitude of others they could have chosen instead. Yolanda knew better than that; it was a strategic move. She’d hold this appointment until she stepped down. That was always how it was done. They could influence her vote - even tell her to vote a particular way - but they could not remove her, nor force her hand. So the Malfoys had chosen a smart, but politically disinterested half-blood for the spot. 

She was not alone in this, by any means. She’d made some friends among the purebloods’ favored lap dogs, and they met surreptitiously, behind closed doors. Nothing illegal; they were careful never to represent a quorum of any committee. But they privately took turns mocking their keepers - the Malfoys; the Bulstrodes; the Selwyns who had retreated into obscurity, unseen since Dumbledore's death; the Yaxleys, who were supposed to be kind, and whose representative planned to step down once the firestorm was over; the Lestranges who hadn’t a single member of the family not behind bars; even Ollivander whose representative hadn’t been an Ollivander for generations. They all met, wondering at the strange tactics and obtuse conversations that happened in the Wizangamot, laughing at the Muggleborn protesters in the streets who were petitioning for additional elected seats to be added on top of the half-dozen new seats that had already been added in the past year. None of the pureblood house representatives were affiliated with the Muggleborn rights movement; they would never have been appointed if they were. There was a certain pride that orbiting the purebloods brought, though, and a disdain for marching in the streets. 

_ What they don’t know is that the purebloods are giving over their seats to us without even a protest. The revolution is happening under their noses, and they don’t even have the sense to look down. _So had spoken the Ollivander appointee, a spry and muscular young man that Yolanda couldn’t help but admire. She did so now, across the hall from him, and he caught her look and gave her a wink, grinning broadly. She couldn't help the blush, grateful for her olive skin.

The older purebloods were all grumbling amongst themselves. Smattered protests continued. “We have far more important things to do than debate for days over the innocence of Bellatrix Black. Can we all agree that she is most definitely _ not innocent? _ I don’t see why calling schoolchildren to testify will lend much light to an already _ Black _ affair.” That was definitely Macmillan, Yolanda thought. He was gray-haired and balding, with bushy eyebrows that raised expectantly as the audience chamber’s door opened. 

“The question is not whether she is innocent, but rather, whether evidence will show that her virtues -" Bones said, and then he saw that the witness had arrived and fell silent. 

Hermione Granger looked older than her sparse years should show. Her shoulders were bowed, although she kept her chin up as she went to the center of the stage, facing out at the Wizangamot, who collectively looked expectantly down upon her.

Yolanda started, realizing it was on her to resume the formal proceedings. “Well, Hermione Granger. Thank you for appearing. The Wizangamot has a number of questions for you regarding the trial of Bellatrix Black.”

Granger nodded shortly, almost a tic, narrowing her eyes and her mouth expectantly. Again, Yolanda wondered at her composure. She looked like she was about to wrestle a tiger, and that she was confident that she would win. 

The first question came from Yolanda’s left. She craned her neck to peer back at the speaker. 

"I have heard that you visited Miss Black last night in her prison cell. Do tell me what you discussed at that time.”

Granger stuck out her chin and said, “Private conversations with prison inmates should not be subject to disclosure. But since you ask, we discussed her enlistment into the military in October. I opposed it,” Granger said, faltering slightly. “And I asked her what she’d like me to tell you now, and she told me to tell you the truth.” She paused for a long moment before continuing, eyes lidded.

"She has said that her actions have been beyond scrutiny for the past year, after she killed Voldemort. It is true that she enlisted in the war effort, and then went undercover without permission. When she reappeared, she willingly submitted to imprisonment, only to escape. She left prison with the intention of protecting Hogwarts from an attack she had warned the Aurors about. Although she did not defend Hogwarts, she allowed herself to be recaptured, and stood her own trial. She's asked for you to consider her recent actions a testament to her intentions now, which are only to uphold Wizarding law. I think that she means it."

"Do you vouch for her?" Bones asked directly. 

"Yes, I do," Granger said without flinching. 

"And do you bear her soul mark?" 

Granger unbuttoned the top three buttons of her blouse and shrugged it off her shoulder, revealing an undershirt and the mark that matched Bellatrix Black's mark. There were scattered murmurings, and craned necks. Yolanda was among them. She'd never seen a soul mark before Black's trial on Monday. 

"Please understand that the mark does not dictate my actions," Granger told them as she re-buttoned her blouse. "I am not her vassal. I want to be clear about that, and I wanted to say my piece, before telling you this. 

"The Black seat has been unfilled since Sirius Black's imprisonment in Azkaban. As you know, the Blacks never designated a member for that seat. It is less well-known that when a House's heir succeeds, the seat is automatically given to them. Bellatrix Black succeeded Sirius Black as Head of House Black on October 5th of last year, and has therefore been a member of the Wizangamot since that date. 

"Per Section 294.2 of the Charter, any allegations or charges against a member of the Wizangamot are required to be presented to the Commission for Warlock Integrity, which is not established as of today. Any allegations or charges against a member of the Wizangamot considered in a hearing, such as the ones you've been conducting this week and the trial on Monday, are _ invalid and dismissed _ if not presented by that Commission. You'd do well to direct the Head Auror to release her from custody immediately."

The room erupted, and Granger stood up and left the chamber. 

  
  
  


Bella pushed open the door to the Black Mansion, expecting to smell dust in the air. Olena and Yat were diligent, but only to the point of fulfilling their direct duties. The kitchen and living room would be clean, and the entryway, study, and vast expanses of unused bedrooms would be musty and unpolished by now. She'd never asked her house elves to keep the house spotless, and they'd never gone above and beyond. 

She was surprised, then, to find that the house seemed impeccably maintained. She walked carefully upon the old rug that protected the floor of the entry chamber. Each room was dark and cold and clean. She skirted the grand staircase, preferring to walk behind and up the narrower private stairwell. As she expected, the kitchen lights were on, and they shone brightly across her path upward into darkness. The whiff of baking and the crackle of a cooking-fire chased her up the stairs. 

She skirted the light, walking with measured steps, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The Aurors had not given her a wand, but she'd gone straight to her vault at Gringotts after her release and withdrawn an obscene number of Galleons, which were heavy in her bag. She'd gotten a wand at Ollivander's, no substitute wand, but a powerful and matched one, which the old man had offered her without so much as a word. Given their last interaction, the professionalism of it was surprising. She'd paid his price, an unreasonable one, and Apparated here from within the shop.

She gripped the wand now, wondering if there were gremlins haunting the second floor. She pushed open the door to her bedroom with one booted toe, wrinkling her nose, squinting. 

No surprise awaited her beyond the door. It was nearly midnight now, and the bed was bathed in the silvery light of the moon. The sheets looked clean. She ran her finger along one of the bookshelves, and brought up no dust. 

The standing mirror was in the corner, and Bellatrix studied herself in it. Her hair looked nearly stringy, and she thought that her figure was gaunt again. She remembered Hermione's tiredness last night, and the sharp fury that lit her eye as she asked Bella what she'd done to deserve the treatment she'd gotten so far.

Bella traced the line of her own jaw down her neck, wondering at it. She met her own dark gaze in the mirror, and felt stunned for a moment by her own intensity. 

She was free, for the first time in nearly a year. It was a feeling she'd flirted with, but not fully felt, not yet. Being back here, the place she'd gone after Azkaban, made it more real. She remembered the fury that had driven her then. The sense of injustice. The desire for revenge. _ That _ was its own prison, in a way. Her association with the Dark Lord had made it more so. 

Now she had nothing. She was finally free, for the first time since she'd joined the Dark Lord so long ago. It was an emancipation without the cause. The cause, perhaps, was her own self, but - she’d tried so many guises - Death Eater, prisoner, madwoman, tutor, mother, aunt, lover, defactor, undercover agent, soldier, protector, sinner and saint. Who was she, beyond the many faces? Who could she become, with this freedom so narrowly bought. And at what cost could she obtain yet another guise? Who was she really, with her soulmate so dubious, with the world at her fingertips and no prize making itself apparent to win? And yet, what was there left to lose? 

A smile crept onto the face of the woman in the mirror, and Bella flung herself back into the mattress behind her, wrapping her still-clothed body in the duvet, and closed her eyes. One moment - one step - one decision at a time, and her first was to sleep. 

The morning light in her eyes woke her, and she rolled over to cover her face. The sight of a tiny, wrinkled house elf staring at her from the ground beside her bed startled her and she sat bolt upright, head spinning.

The creature was even shorter than average, barely a foot tall. It was wizened, with large shining eyes, and looked up at her with a hand in its mouth. 

"What are you?" she asked it blearily. 

"Fred," the house elf told her, and then disappeared with a crack. 

She flung herself back down on the mattress. After a long, blank second, she pulled her new wand out of her wrist holster and flicked it at the window shades to close them. 

Midday, Bella remembered her house vault and dragged herself out of bed. She opened the window to the world, looking out on the bleak winter snowscape before her. Her father's home was seated in Snowdonia, Wales, and most of the rooms abutted the mountain. When her father finally died, Bella had immediately moved her own room to one of the few bedrooms that faced outwards, although she rarely found any solace in the desolate view. 

She tried to remind herself that this was not the same as Azkaban, or Mungo's, and she should not fall into the same patterns she had when she was in prison. She was free to explore the world, for as long a time as Hermione's miraculous technicality bought her. But what did she want now? Enlisting had not gotten her any farther than where she was already. What more could she do, when the army did not want her - Hogwarts did not want her - her soulmate would rather her dead than haunting this place, neither relevant nor obscure, foundering in shallow water? 

She opened her wardrobe, which looked emptier than she remembered. She stripped, showered, and changed into a more comfortable evening gown, nothing for company, but designed for family nights. She hadn't had any of those, not since leaving Grimmauld. She spared a thought for Andromeda, wondering if her sister had taken her place on the Ministry's prison row. If so, what could Bella do to help her? Precious little now, although Bella wished for a moment that she’d bothered to think of Andromeda before she ran off to try to save the students from a threat they’d so easily dodged without any help at all. 

She wandered down the long hallway toward the stairs. She heard the distant sound of what - distant chirping? Were there birds loose in the Black Mansion? 

It didn't take long for her to find the creatures responsible for the sounds. They were tiny, white and furry, seemingly without legs or arms or snouts, although they did have large ears. They tumbled over each other to scramble away from her in exaggerated distress. They seemed harmless, like the strange tiny house-elf she'd encountered this morning. What had happened to the Black Mansion in her absence? What had Olena and Yat done with the place? Two years or more without a master might transform a palace into a garbage dump, although there was no evidence of direct malfeasance.

She looked more closely at the downstairs rooms as she moved toward the vault. The rooms held large, plush and fluffy objects of various sizes and colors, the most prevalent being an obnoxious bubblegum pink. Was this all that the house elves had to offer - small, white and fluffy beings that made trilling sounds as they scurried away, and large cushions to cover every surface? What would they do when they inevitably discovered her reappearance, assuming that Fred had not already excitedly informed them? 

Bella paused at the entry toward the kitchen, smelling sweet bread and cranberries, and then shook her head and went down the stairs to the vault. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear what you think! :)


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has commented so far... I am sorry to disappoint some of you, but be assured that all will be right in the end (probably). I appreciate all the support I've gotten (Bellamione Cult and in the AO3 community). Dedicating this next chapter to all the shippers out there ;)
> 
> Also, for those impacted by COVID-19, I wish all the best for your families, financial situations, and health :)

Bellatrix opened her vault in the Black Mansion. The door swung ponderously open, revealing a far more orderly collection of valuables than her vault in Gringotts. The house elves had access to this one and used the cash to purchase necessities for the household; that was how it was always done in pureblood homes. The vault here was a long room like an ice box and just as cold, with shelves that housed goblets, trinkets, jewelry, and the spoils of war - goblin-made swords, helms, and one full suit of medieval armor standing in the back. Bella saw the stacks of Galleons on a shelf beside the suit of armor. The pile was sadly depleted, and she realized that she had not withdrawn anything from Gringotts or replenished the cash stock here when she’d returned from Azkaban. It was a miracle they’d managed on such a short supply for all these seventeen years, but then, house elves had always been fantastic at scrimping and saving. She had never asked them to prepare sumptuous feasts for her, and had often asked only for soup or dried meat when she lived here. Bella had never been one to relish food. 

She summoned the bag of Galleons from her room with a flick of her wand and then went to the shelf of weapons, picking a ritual dagger out of the pile and clutching it tightly. It was unnaturally cold, she thought, and remembered the dagger she’d lost killing that stupid Malfoy house elf last year. Just a common weapon, that. This was far more.

She emptied the bag of Galleons when it arrived, dumping it on the floor at her feet, and then slipped the dagger into the bag. Her fingers drifted over the weapons in contemplation. Some poisonous darts, the tips shining a malevolent green in the half-light. The chest plate she’d considered wearing to the Battle of Hogwarts, charmed against stunning spells; she’d planned to train with it more, and decided against wearing it at the last moment, hating how it restricted her movements. The Blacks were a clan of conquerors, but modern warfare did not usually involve armor or shields. 

There was a small shield, handheld, and Bella picked it up. The shield manifested bright blue when her hand closed around its handle. As she’d told Draco last year, a shield did almost as much to block the user’s spells as it did to protect against an opponent's, and Bella far preferred to dodge over shielding. She put the shield down, and as the manifestation blinked away, the handle clattered down into the pile. 

She thought of Jade, remembering the girl’s fierce fighting on the lawn in front of Hogwarts, the continuous stream of hexes she’d somehow maintained. Bella had practiced with these weapons as a child. They’d had a personal trainer, but Cygnus had trained her as well. Those were her best memories of her father. All those kids could use a round with these weapons, Bella thought, although probably Fidelity Trebble would not allow her son to visit her. The rest of the kids’ mothers likely would, though. Perseus, Bella remembered, surprised that she recalled the name. Perseus Trebble, who was lanky and pale and said only a few words to her when they met. The rest of the kids didn’t seem to mind that he was a Ravenclaw. But would he want to visit her here? Perhaps she should write each of them to invite them over the summer. It was March already, but given their family circumstances, it was unlikely that any of the kids had travel plans. 

The thought of the kids had lightened her heart, but then Bella remembered the dagger in her bag and she felt her heavy frown fall back into place. She dragged her feet up the stairs, through the impeccable entry chamber, and pushed open the ponderous door to the world outside. 

Frigid air hit her and she shivered, closing the door quickly behind her. Snow drifts piled high along the winding trail that led down the mountain, although the trail itself was charmed against snow and was clear. She pulled her collar up against the wind and walked faster, thoughts turning to Hermione as they always did. 

The girl must have dug deep into the bylaws to find that loophole to set Bella free. Bella had caught only a glimpse of her as she was released by the Aurors, standing beside Potter, looking drained and waif-like. Bella had never seen her looking so exhausted. She thought that probably the Wizengamot was establishing the Commission to charge her even as the Aurors were releasing her, but she was still here and not locked back up, which meant… something, probably. Hermione was right; they must have really been considering her case, given that they’d asked for further testimony after she'd been presented to the tribunal. Perhaps they lacked the political will to go through the effort of charging her again. Perhaps they would even have acquitted her, although that seemed impossible. If they didn't charge her, they wouldn't have to go through the painful process of debating her case once again. The thought gave Bella some hope. 

And the girl must not hate her, if she’d gone through that kind of effort to save her. What was she thinking now? Bella could not rely upon the possibility that she’d come after her again, not after all those letters, and visiting her in prison. It was on Bella to make the next move. Not for the first time, she was lost in matters of romance. This was the only relationship that mattered to Bella, and she had managed to obliterate it through some combination of negligence, avoidance, and bullheadedness. She thought for the first time that perhaps she’d been unfair to Muddy, and remembered that as Bella did, Muddy must feel the influence of their shared mark.  _ Then that is what it is, _ Muddy had told her after a day of lovemaking. And how could it not be love? What was love, if not that feeling when they touched? 

She wondered what Andy would advise that she do now. She should visit Grimmauld. If Andy wasn’t there, at least Nymphadora would be, and she’d have some answers for Bella. 

Bella stopped at the edge of the Blacks’ ritual circle, which was seated in the center of a sparse grove of pine trees. The circle was not charmed as the trail had been, but the edges of the circle were still distinct, marked by black stones that seemed to absorb light and repel the snow. Bella took the short step into the circle, being mindful of the edge, cautious as one always needed to be in these matters. 

Bella drew out her wand and levitated the dagger from her bag, watching it spin lazily in the air. She flicked her wand, coughing out the cursed incantation, and a gout of flame in the shape of a great raven shot from the tip, engulfing the dagger gifted to her by the Dark Lord. She lowered her wand instantly, but the fire galloped forward, reaching the edge of the ritual circle and shooting upward along the edge.

Bella took the short step back out of the circle and watched the flames leap, building upon themselves, filling the circle completely. Serpents joined the raven, racing upward at an impossible speed, burning a circular hole in the clouds above. As available air in the ritual circle was consumed, the fire died away near the ground, and the front of fire disappeared into the distance. Bella imagined it burning out as it reached the upper atmosphere. She imagined that the signal might be visible in Liverpool. She wondered whether the little Muggles would think that it was a comet, visible even in the daylight. 

There was nothing left of the dagger, not even a trace. It had made no sound as it died. Another loose end, tied off, but if anything Bella was disappointed. It was not the Horcrux she had hoped for and dreaded finding. It was something, but not that, and now it was destroyed and Bella was back to square one. 

Shoulders bowed, Bella plodded back up the mountain. 

  
  
  


_ The soul mark is rare. It is estimated that one out of every two to four hundred witches and wizards have one. The soul mark manifests in the womb; a mark that was not present at birth is no mark at all. Homosexual pairings are rare but not unheard-of. And non-sexual pairings appear to exist, although they are even more vanishingly rare, likely due to the physical effects of the mark on the bonded pair.  _

_ Aside from the social constructions around the soul mark, discussed hereinafter, the most burning question I am asked by those that are marked is this - What is the purpose of my mark? Why was I marked, and my sister unmarked? Indeed, there is evidence that the soul mark does manifest more frequently in a pair that would not otherwise be romantically accessible to one another. There is a connection with procreation, but like love in non-bonded couples, the relationship does not inevitably result in children.  _

_ Can someone with a soul mark fall in love with a person who does not share their mark? It has been known to happen, although it is much, much more common in people who do not recognize their mark for what it is. When their bonded mate is found, existing relationships are most often abandoned immediately. It is clear that for the bonded pair, the mark overwhelms all prior commitments. Does the soul mark, then, foster a deeper bond than unmarked witches and wizards can achieve? A question impossible to answer.  _

_ However, there are no known cases of a marked witch or wizard, having met their bonded mate, going on to form another romantic attachment to someone else. In fact, in most cases, the bond is only broken when one of the bonded pair dies, usually followed soon thereafter by their mate.  _

Bella tossed the book down on the ground, staring up at the ceiling. She’d found it on the bottom shelf of the bookcase in her room. At the time she’d moved rooms, she’d considered putting the book in the library, but some sense of nostalgia had made her bring it with her here. Even after she’d lost everything to the Dark Lord, she had held, in some deep part of her, some last flicker of hope. She could not imagine the witch that could love her, given what she’d become. The book had reminded her that the witch would have no choice but to love her, which at the time gave her a sense of gleeful satisfaction. Hermione Granger was born only a few months after she’d switched rooms, and the Dark Lord was defeated for the first time a year after that. 

It was not love. Hermione couldn’t love her, not the person she’d become. Bella wished that when Hermione was born, she’d have had some hint, some clue that she'd finally arrived. The possibility of redemption might have kept her from the extremes she’d fallen into after the Dark Lord’s first defeat. If only she’d known that it would be Hermione then. But she could not go back to that time, and it was too late for Bella to redeem herself now. 

She wished for the letters she’d gotten from Muddy at Grimmauld. Muddy had said something about redemption in one of those letters. When she lived at Grimmauld, that correspondence was part of falling in love. She remembered the short notes -  _ Maybe Sunday, Bella - _ and the sense of mingled frustration and anticipation she’d felt then. She hadn’t known how lucky she was. Now there was no weekly meeting. There was nothing to look forward to at all. Her future was empty of hope. 

She rolled over on the bed and picked the book back up, flipping to a new page. 

_ Antoin Uther, aged forty-seven, in the year 1934, attempted to break his soul bond by cutting out the mark. Uther and mate died two days after that, on opposite sides of the continent.  _

The rest of the page was filled with similar obituaries. One simply read,  _ Murder/suicide, 1982.  _

Bella felt a sense of muted rage. All of the people chronicled here had given up on the bond and tried to end it. They must have felt this emptiness, followed these same obsessive thought patterns. After what point did it become too much to bear? Surely they faced circumstances no more impossible than the one Bella found herself in. A soul mate that hated them. An unlovable personality, and too much pride to abase oneself for the purpose of re-establishing a physical relationship. That was all the mark had ever done for Bella - it had seduced them both, drawing their bodies together for sex without meaning. What was it that made that so intolerable to Bella? She would never have imagined choosing chastity, but that was what she had done and it had ruined everything. She’d asked Hermione once for love, and been convinced that Hermione's answer to her was a lie. She could not ask again because the word meant nothing on Hermione’s lips. 

If only just to see her again. To touch her hand. To be held closely. That was it, the only imaginable salve to the bone-deep hurt in Bella’s chest. It would be enough; Bella didn’t need love, only the warm wholeness of Hermione’s body nestled against hers. 

She sprung out of bed, Disapparating with a crack. London was gloomy, and Bella rounded the corner of the alleyway onto Grimmauld Place, walking briskly. Bella did not bother to knock, and the door opened at her touch. The house shuddered expectantly under her feet. 

The sound of male voices quieted abruptly from the direction of the drawing room. Bella ignored them, marching to the stairs. She heard footfalls, some muttering, the sound of a woman’s voice. 

She went to Sirius’s room, wrenching open the drawer with the letters. She stuck them in her pocket, glancing briefly around the room. The sheets on the bed were mussed, and she remembered laying there, wrapped tightly around Muddy’s body, their naked skin sliding slickly together. It was the mark that made Bella’s heart howl in her chest. A small sound of longing escaped her, and then a floorboard creaked outside her door and she turned quickly to face the intruder.

It was Hermione, the boys flanking her on either side, Nymphadora a step behind them with Teddy in her arms. He was so much bigger now, clinging to his mother with eyes wide, an infant no longer. She let her eyes settle on Muddy’s, drawn irresistibly forward toward her.

“Bella. Where did you go?” Hermione asked her, breathless. She looked better than she had yesterday, and began to step forward, before Weasley grabbed her arm to hold her back.

“Home,” Bella told her simply.

“Take me there,” Hermione said, and she pulled away from Weasley and took Bella’s hand.

Bella Apparated them to the entry chamber. The crack of their arrival echoed in the gloom, and the sound of dishware in the kitchen came to an abrupt halt. Bella turned uncertainly to Muddy, and Muddy looked around, inspecting the place.

“This is your home?” she asked. She looked through an open door, past the mysterious pink cushions and the ancient furniture, out the window. The frosted peaks of the surrounding mountain range were clearly visible. 

“I wanted to bring you here,” Bella said quickly, hand still held loosely in Hermione’s. “After you graduated. It could be yours, too.”

Hermione gave her a measured look, more guarded now than in the first moment of their meeting. Bella remembered her look over the metal table in prison, and tried to release Hermione’s hand. Hermione did not let her go, interlacing their fingers. 

“Who else is here?” she asked.

“My elves,” Bella told her. Hermione nodded shortly and then took a few steps forward, towing Bella behind her. Bella watched her as she looked in each room. The drawing room, the study, the library which lit Hermione’s eyes up, and then the grand staircase. Bella had been avoiding it - there were unpleasant memories here - but she followed Hermione willingly up to the second floor.

“Your room?” Hermione asked. “We need to talk privately.”

“It is all private,” Bella muttered, but her heart leapt and she brought Hermione there, pushing open the door with her toe. 

Hermione took it in - the four-poster bed, the open closet, the windows that took over an entire wall. The curtains were open, and Bella watched as Hermione took in the view of the mountain range before them. It looked more impressive than desolate to Bella now. 

The elves had been in her room since she left, and the bed was made, the book placed on the desk, writing paper stacked neatly and the many letter drafts in the wastebasket cleared away. A single bran muffin was on the table in the corner nook, and a peeled orange. Bella’s stomach rumbled; she’d skipped dinner yesterday, and breakfast this morning. She hadn't been hungry.

Hermione closed the door behind them, turning to Bella. She released Bella’s hand, putting her hands around the back of her neck, and their foreheads together. Their breath mingled, and the tension in Bella’s chest, the impatient buzzing under her skin, the ache of her bones that she hadn't quite fully realized was there, all faded instantly into a warm satisfied glow. Bella put her hands on the small of Muddy’s waist, feeling her ribs, the soft curve of her hips. She remembered longing to see Muddy’s lips as she lay in bed reading that damn book only twenty minutes ago. This was all she’d wanted, and now that she had it she was rendered completely helpless. 

“It would be so easy to forgive you,” Muddy murmured. “All of me is screaming to do that. Give me any reason to.”

Bella’s blood rushed in her ears. She had not prepared for this, and remembered that Muddy did not love her, could not, and that the power that drew them together was beyond either of their control. 

“This is all I want in the world,” Bella told her, the words tumbling over each other eagerly. “I don’t care that you hate me.”

“I can’t hate you,” Muddy said. Her elbows rested on Bella’s chest and she backed her slowly up into the door, trapping her there. Tension crackled between their bodies, still separated by a foot of empty air. Bella’s body shuddered at the intensity of it. 

“Give me another chance,” Bella begged. It was the wrong thing to say. Muddy pulled away, glaring at her, but the look softened before Bella could think of how to fix it.

“Damn the mark,” Muddy breathed. “I can’t think when I’m touching you.” She pressed their cheeks together, breathing into Bella’s ear, and an answering warmth bloomed in Bella’s stomach. “I told you this wasn’t good for me, but I can’t - I can’t stop it.”

“It is our fate,” Bella told her, turning her face to Muddy’s neck. Her lips brushed Muddy’s skin, and Muddy shuddered, trailing one hand down Bella’s chest, over her stomach, and under the waistband of Bella’s skirt. Bella breathed out harshly, and Muddy pressed her body against the door and slipped her finger into Bella’s slickness, brushing her clit gently. Bella’s hips rocked forward, and Muddy withdrew her hand, turning her face into Bella’s. She opened her mouth and put her wet finger into it, moaning deeply. Bella sighed, threading one hand into Hermione’s hair at the back of her neck, tugging her - 

Muddy stepped away, and Bella let her go, heart dropping. 

“We need to talk,” Muddy breathed. “Really talk. This can’t happen now.”

Bella nodded sharply. “Stay,” she said, but it was into the empty air. Hermione had already gone.

Bella fell onto her knees, the abrupt loss of her making it impossible for her to stand. She was gone - back to London, or perhaps to Scotland, nowhere Bella could follow her now. She jammed her hand between her own legs, stroking herself three times, her hips twitching, and rode out four seconds of intense pleasure before collapsing down fully onto the floor, wrapping her arms together against her chest, her body wracked by empty, silent sobs. There was nothing, absolutely nothing worse than this sudden abandonment. The mark punished her, perhaps, for not finding the words to keep Muddy here. She was so close. They shouldn’t have touched, except there was no keeping their bodies apart. 

She should write a letter to Muddy, but she didn’t have the strength to stand. She stayed curled into herself on the floor for a long time, feeling the buzzing of her skin, the aching of her bones, the torture of their separation, hoping that Hermione felt this exquisite agony too and that it would bring her back here. She did not come.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for g!p in the dream sequence at the beginning of the chapter. I would say that it is not too graphic, but if that's a big yuck skip down past the first two scenes.

_ Bella pushed Hermione before her toward the Dark Lord’s dias. The room was cavernous, smooth, silent except for the three of them. The door thudded closed behind them, and the room echoed the sound dully. _

_ Bella’s groin lit up with fire in the place she was connected to the girl. She felt their connection deeply, the length of her tight and long inside Hermione’s body. The girl whimpered softly, although it was not clear whether it was from their connection or the Dark Lord’s presence. The girl’s skin rippled and raised up in goosepimples where her hand held her on her bare waist, and Bella was at least certain that no amount of dread could replicate that kind of visceral response. _

_ “Bellatrix,” the Dark Lord intoned, and Bella raised her eyes to look at him without fear or doubt. It seemed that her Lord did not know, could not see somehow, that she was connected to the girl, and Bella was grateful. If He knew, He would not approve. She felt it deeply in her bones - some sense of shame, a misalignment, something dirty and unworthy of His gaze. She gripped the muddy tighter with her hand on its hip, jamming their bodies impossibly closer, and the muddy whimpered again, contracting around Bella’s length wetly. _

_ “Come closer,” the Dark Lord bade her, and they walked in lockstep toward him. Something in Bella’s heart inflated happily at the Mudblood’s seemingly thoughtless obedience. “Stop,” he barked, and they both stilled. Hermione’s back straightened, her shoulders squared, her chin lifted to raise her gaze to meet His. The friction made Hermione's body ripple around Bella's, but if anything the eroticism only lended the girl more strength in her pose. _

_ Bella grabbed her neck with her free hand, squeezing it. “I have a prize to present to you,” she hissed, trying to force Muddy’s eyes down with that hand, while keeping the girl’s hips close and tight against hers. _

_ “It seems you have a prize that you intend to only have as yours.” The Dark Lord chuckled, and Bella’s heart went cold. _

_ “No, no, my Lord,” she stuttered. _

_ “Then why can’t you withdraw from it?” he asked her, tilting his head, looking almost inquisitive. _

_ Bella jerked her hips, but he spoke truly - she could not separate her body from Hermione’s. It was like a hard, glass cage encircled their hips, trapping them together. Despite her growing horror, her body blossomed happily at the sensation of Hermione welcoming her wetly. Their hips slammed back together, and Bella’s vision went briefly blank. It seemed that Hermione was a great, black chasm, and Bella became quickly lost in her, losing herself, losing every visceral sense but that of her. _

_ “You treat your pet well,” the Dark Lord crooned. He stood lithely, eyes gleaming blackly in the darkness. “You love her dearly. You upend every value you once held dear, just to have her. You would live a life of poverty, of homelessness, of aimless wandering, just to meet her eyes and have her smile at you.” _

_ His face faded slowly from Bella’s vision as her focus honed in on the connection between her body and the girl’s. His voice faded even more slowly, a litany of supposed sins, which some part of Bella knew to be true. The last thing to fade was Bella’s gut-deep sensation of being buried inside her Muddy, not thrusting as much as twitching and clutching, scrabbling to hold the girl closer yet, trying and failing to have Muddy’s obedience in the moment of their judgement. _

  
  


Bella woke gasping. She’d accidentally transfigured her body, and the unwanted member twitched and spurted into her bedsheets, leaving a tired emptiness in her gut. She dismissed it and sat up in her bed, swinging lanky legs off the side of it. Despite her height, her legs didn’t meet the floor, and she resolved to saw the bottoms of the legs off her bed frame that morning so that she could rest securely with her feet on the ground. Especially in moments like these, Bella wished to have her heels planted in place. 

She leapt off the bed and stood, straight and tall, taking in the new dawn. The memory of the afternoon yesterday burned a hollow hole in her sternum. Muddy had come with her, here. She’d loved her - their bodies had been so close, they’d nearly had what they lost - and then Muddy had left again, blaming Bella for it. Probably. What had Muddy said? What had her lover wanted? 

The brief, fleeting sensation of her dream had consumed Bella’s thoughts, and now she wanted only to dive deeper into her soulmate’s body, to explore the wet welcoming places, even if it made her impoverished and homeless and aimless - just to have that, the one thing, her lover’s body, and Bella would be whole. She did not want her lover inside her, although it nearly satisfied the deep hunger in them both. She needed to have Hermione’s body, in its deepest places, to know that Hermione would wreck herself as wholly as Bella had for their love affair. Her chest shook with that unfulfilled longing, and Bella wondered briefly if she’d feel it so deeply if Hermione hadn’t already had her body in like kind. Was it the lack of reciprocation that did it? Or was it just the longing to see Hermione’s face in repose, blissful and undone by what Bella had given her? 

Her body wracked again, and Bella collapsed on the cold, stone tiles of the ground, her knees aching even after she’d contacted the surface. She wasn’t aroused anymore, but something in her gut yanked her forward brutally toward Hermione anyway. “My fate, my love,” Bella muttered with a deep self-hatred. “Come back,” she said, muffling her voice in the collar of her nightdress, closing her hand over her own mouth to stop the words. 

  
  


There were a thousand inventors, Bella thought as she strode the long, narrow and icy street of Porthmadog, Wales. She remembered the journeys here by flying carriage so long ago, before she and her sisters could Apparate, with her mother who was much crueler in public than she was at home. Bella had wandered off daringly into the icy marches, while her sisters trotted dutifully along behind their mother, and she’d always come back a sodden, filthy mess, having none of the benefit of the civilizing Wizard alleyway of the village, denied all the fancy dresses and trinkets her sisters got, but still feeling far more wealthy than either of them ever would be. She’d communed with the frogs, escaped the dull confinement of their youths, and she’d never trade that for any ring or bauble. 

There were a thousand inventors and entrepreneurs, whose names were lost to time, and whose inventions had shaped the world they lived in today. Who had discovered Floo? Not Merlin, or Dumbledore, but someone or _ someones _ who'd lived between the revered magicians. Who’d adjusted the powder mixture, ingredient by ingredient, measure by measure, painstakingly, over the course of generations? Who had found a way of connecting the fireplaces? Unnamed witches, whose lack of fame somehow made them equal to the witches who shuffled along this forgotten alleyway, shooting untrusting glances at the strange, curly-haired and pale witch who was unnaturally tall and unaccountably proud, and who took up more space than she was owed in this humble, damp, forgotten corner of the world. 

Bella came for supplies, and bundled them up into a burlap sack as she made her way, one by one, down the shop fronts. Wizards stared at her mistrustingly, or out of the sides of their eyes, but they bit the edges of her Galleons and spat the flecks of gold dust out of their mouths, allowing her to leave with what she’d come for. 

Nothing special or fancy, but nothing Bella could do without for too long. It had been a long summer, and a long winter, and it was nearly summer again; Bella was a prisoner no longer, and walked without a care on the street filled with people who reviled her. It was not an unfamiliar experience, and she did not begrudge them their suspicions.

She played with the idea of retaking Grimmauld from the Potter boy. Why was he here, and not deployed? Perhaps it was for her trial he had returned. And the Weasley boy too - they’d come to protect Hermione from Bella, or the trial, or both. Bella had a feeling in her gut that they were both part of the Wizengamot. Potter certainly held his hereditary seat, and the Weasleys were owed one, too. It wasn’t proper to have a member of the Wizengamot who was also an Auror, but then, when did the Potters or Weasleys bow to propriety? Bella’s lip curled into an unpleasant grimace, and the next shopkeeper flinched from her fearfully before she was able to regulate her expression into something more neutral.

She Apparated back into the entry chamber of her home, glimpsing the heels of house elves - more than one, a whole flock of them - disappear toward the kitchen. Some sense of curiosity drove her forward toward it, still clutching the bulging burlap sack in her hand. She had an hour or two yet before she was due at the Malfoys, and judged her current ensemble to be sufficient for that setting, either way. 

She followed the skittering heels to the kitchen threshold, and stopped there, looking imperiously down.

All the implements were elf-sized, unlike the high tables and tall ovens of Grimmauld. Bella realized, in some distant part of her mind, that Grimmauld had been built for human slaves and not house elves. She’d never peered into the kitchen of her home before. The elves came at her beck and call; why should she intrude on their domain? And yet - and yet, the strange, fluffy and neon pillows had begun slowly dissipating, as if dispelled, and the rooms had not been swept since her arrival two days ago. Bella sensed that she had intruded upon something that had grown without supervision for years now - years, perhaps, even since Azkaban, and Bella may have been too self-absorbed to notice the subtle changes, the growth, that had happened in her absence.

She cleared her throat, and four sets of wide and luminous eyes matched with long, wizened noses made themselves known to her, from around the corners of the tables and ovens and god-knows-what gadgets that infested this warm, cheery place. 

“Olena. Yat.” 

The elves bowed deeply and then ran to her feet, prostrating themselves before her.

“Stand up, you foolish animals,” Bella spat harshly. They stood, trembling.

She surveyed the remaining two sets of eyes, bald heads, and long noses as they peered at her. One of the elves was clearly Fred, the child who’d visited her on her first night here. The other was smaller yet, and already sniffling in preemptive fear. Fred had nearly exposed him - her? - it? - self around the leg of a large cauldron, examining Bellatrix with as much curiosity as she examined him.

“I can see that you’ve made yourselves at home here,” Bella began, letting her eyes wander between Olena, Yat, and Fred. 

“Yes, Master. Mistress. Lady Black, we meant no harm at all - we simply -”

“We did not know when you were to return,” Olena interrupted Yat, shooting him a familiar and nearly scalding look. “As you gave no orders, milady,” she added, bowing deeply again.

“I did not know that you elves could… breed,” Bella said, although she did not think her tone was too unpleasant. They both quivered, shooting anxious glances at each other. “Do you lay eggs, as the tales tell? And how are the children so wrinkled? Is it a condition of your curse?”

Olena kept her head bowed, but shook it wildly, and Bella stared at the wisps of gray, malnourished and stringy hair on the creature’s head. 

“Well?” Bella prompted.

“The oystercatchers bring the babes,” Yat told her softly, keeping his bald head bowed. “We brought them in when we heard their cries.”

“Ho!” Bella barked incredulously. “Birds bring them? In little baskets, I imagine?”

“Malformed children of their own,” Yat told her solemnly. “It is the magic that makes it happen.”

Bella chewed on her words for a long breath_ . _ Fred was clutching his hands anxiously before him, nearly wringing them, but his head was not bowed as his parents’ were. His eyes were clear blue, watery, but inquisitive. Bella felt certain, suddenly, that she’d seen him before his visit to her bedside on the night she’d arrived. She also realized that he was not bound to her, as his parents were - he was a free elf. 

“So you’ve been growing a little _ malformed _ family, is that it?” she taunted, and the elves actually stepped closer together, bowing their shoulders more deeply, nearly embracing each other. Ready for the end. “Well, lucky for you, I fit right in!” she declared abruptly, meeting their eyes as both their heads shot up to look at her. “I’m as malformed as the best of them! Might as well have Druella and dear Cygnus snatched me up from some deformed oystercatcher themselves, as happy they were at my birth! Won’t we just make the happiest of misplaced families here, on this peak at the edge of civilization?”

She waited for the pair of them to answer, and when they did not, she picked back up her burlap sack and began to make her way up the back stairwell to her room. She called after herself, “The bright cushions - wherever you have stashed them - I hope that you will restore them soon. I plan to have a number of important visitors, and they _ must _ have seats.”

There was an audible chattering behind her, and she chuckled at the sound, imagining what her puppies would do with the cushions come summer.

  
  


Narcissa was as stern and calculating as always when she opened the door to the Malfoy Mansion for Bella that evening. The sky was bright - Bella felt the spring equinox approaching them rapidly. Maybe her elves would have another deformed bird delivered at their doorsteps. Perhaps Hermione would see her again. Each equinox heralded a new beginning, or a long-awaited death, and Bella could barely contain herself in anticipation for this one. 

“So you used the defense I suggested,” Narcissa said airily as she led Bella to the drawing-room. The room was already filled with cigar smoke, which made Bella long for a cigarette, but when she pierced the haze it was only Draco, sitting like a would-be king on his father’s chair.

Narcissa poured them thick, blood-red wine in three goblets, and Bella finally relaxed, feeling certain that Lucius was, somehow and for whatever cause, gone from this place. Hopefully for good. 

Bella collapsed into a plush armchair, taking the goblet from the table. She swirled the liquor and then tasted it, surveying her sister and nephew with a questioning look. 

Narcissa broke the silence first. “Well? Do you have anything to say about the trial?” 

“A dreadfully boring affair,” Bella informed her, tossing back the liquor and then placing her empty goblet down on the table. Narcissa obligingly filled it, and Draco looked at them both through the haze of smoke. “I do appreciate your strategic guidance, though, sister,” she said as sincerely as she could, and then finished the second pour off easily, feeling an unquenchable thirst in her belly.

“What does Granger think?” Draco asked Bella, puffing out another large halo of smoke. 

Bella’s lip twisted downward, and she downed her third glass of what she guessed was port without answering. 

“Our contact in the Wizengamot said that she comported herself remarkably well during her testimony,” Narcissa said with a hint of the haughtiness that had contributed to the Malfoys' nearly unconditional pardon. Bella wondered, again, what had come of Lucius. 

Bella gave her a sidelong glance, wondering what Muddy had said about her. 

“Is it like the stories?” her second sister asked her, and Bella frowned heavily.

“Boy. Do you have another cigar, or can you share?”

Draco scrabbled and produced a nice specimen, a Cuban cigar from the 1970s, well-preserved by magic, and Bella bit off the tip and puffed through the still-stale tobacco before answering.

“Andy asked me that six months ago,” she said, scowling at her youngest sister. “Is it reasonable, the effects that the damn Mark has on us? Or right? I can’t imagine that it is, but then, when was a soul mark ever convenient?” She shrugged her Marked shoulder, and Narcissa’s eyes seemed to linger on it. Imagining, perhaps, the long upside-down droplet-like mark, etched deeply into her skin like a dimple or an acne scar, indented, unmistakeable. It was hard to forget the shape of a soul mark, once you knew it, once you knew where it rested. “Hermione says,” Bella relished in the ease of her name, rolling off her tongue like it was meant to be there, “that the mark was not my redemption, but I redeemed myself anyway. What could that possibly mean, sister?” Bella laughed harshly, like a bark in the silence of the drawing-room. “She imagines me redeemed.”

“You are,” Draco said, leaning forward precariously, elbows on his knees in a pose that was familiar to Bella. It was her own, a stable position, almost academic when he took it with his stringy and long limbs. It occurred to Bella that his body was so unlike her sister's, and much more like Bella herself. “You redeemed yourself, when you destroyed the Dark Lord.”

Bella shuddered at His mention, a shadow of last night’s dream coming over her calamitously. She considered telling them what she’d told Hermione - that the Dark Lord’s Horcruxes were not destroyed, that He observed her, that she was never alone and always hunted - and then she thought, with a slight jolt, that she had not felt the unwanted scry since she’d been released from the Ministry more than two days ago, now. What could it mean? Was the Black Mansion protected? Was the Malfoys’? And Porthmadog? It didn’t make sense, and Bella sunk deeply into her chair and strained to puff at her cigar, wondering.

“You did!” Draco said, and stood as if to prove his point. He looked too-skinny like that. Bella thought he was imagining himself as Head of House, and thought also that he was insufficient at it.

“Andy. How does she fare?" she muttered, turning to Narcissa as if to shut the adolescent pretender out, and Draco took the hint with grace and collapsed back into his chair. 

Narcissa shot a brief look at her son, and then focused back on Bella. "My contact in the Wizangamot says that it is likely she'll be released tomorrow. The Aurors have been unable to find enough evidence of wrongdoing to call a trial. I suppose the fact that you walk free has something to do with it, too."

"Good," Bella said, smacking her lips, wishing vainly for more port. Narcissa had placed the bottle away from her, and failed to refill her cup. Bella supposed it was likely for the best. "Do you know if they'll make that damn commission? Or will I be free?"

Narcissa gave her a measuring look. "It is hard to say, but apparently not a single member of the Wizangamot brought the matter up during today's session."

"So there is hope." Bella considered the idea for a long moment, and was interrupted abruptly by a memory she'd repressed for a long time. “Your curse. I watched your trial. Is it true?”

Narcissa lifted her shirt, revealing a ghost-white line along the middle of her torso, at her waist. “I didn’t lie,” she told Bella, showing the first hint of vulnerability tonight. “Do you know the curse? Do you have its counter?”

Bella’s lips hardened into a thin line, and she shook her head, reaching out to trace the blue-white strand that bit into her sister’s skin. “I don’t know it,” Bella told her. “But I am ready to dispel it, whatever it takes, sister.” She met Narcissa’s eyes and only when her sister’s gaze faltered did she realize how hungry her own look was, like a creature that had not known what it was to eat before, or known a real challenge until this moment. 


	20. Chapter 20

_ Dearest Hermione, _

_ Tomorrow morning? A place of your choosing? _

_ Love, _

_ Bella _

Bellatrix crumpled the parchment and discarded it. She hated the apology in the tone. She ran through the places they might meet - the Leaky Cauldron? No, too public, and Bella wanted to wear her own face for this. It seemed impossible to pick a spot that was sufficiently public to stop their seemingly insatiable hands, quiet enough to talk, and private enough that Bella could appear without being subject to wandering eyes.

Except… she remembered the boardwalks of Porthmadog, smelling of fish, encroaching upon the sodden waters of the bogs. It was a place people might walk, wizards and Muggles alike, and the wizards in that tiny fisherman's town did not seem excessively interested in Bella's personage - only her demeanor, and her gold. It might be safe enough, and there were run-down benches, and they could observe the sea. 

She took up the quill again.

_ Hermione, _

_ Will you meet me at 9am outside Grimmauld Place tomorrow morning? I'd like to walk with you, and I think I know a place that I think might be suitable. I hope that the time and day will work for you, and that you might trust me enough to try it. _

_ Lovingly yours, _

_ Bella _

Bella reviewed the letter once, resisting her tendency toward excessive revision, and then folded it up and went hunting for an owl in the upper reaches of the Black Mansion. 

When the owl was away, she collapsed into the chair at her desk, looking out the window. The mountains of Wales stared back at her unflinchingly, lit in the red light of the setting sun. She traced the familiar peaks, remembering her first night back from Azkaban. 

She'd Apparated directly here, once she'd gotten her wand back. Olena and Yat had appeared before her, a rarity. They were blurs of motion, running the bath, providing towels, laying out her robes, putting out crackers, cheese, sliced salami, and five varieties of preserved fruits before her and looking anxiously at her as she ignored everything, disappearing her own clothes to the skin and collapsing into the soft bed without a single word. When she awoke, a fried egg on toast, two strips of bacon, and a cluster of fresh green grapes awaited her, the most decadent of the variety of breakfasts she'd ever requested. It was dusk, and the curtains had been opened to reveal the red glare of the sun on the mountains. She'd had only a few minutes to survey the room, feeling as if this world - the distantly familiar walls of her bedroom, the windows, the dresser - was an elaborate fantasy in her mind, too incredible to fully grasp, before her Dark Mark had burned and she'd snapped away to follow her Lord's call to arms. 

What a different person she was then. Some part of Bella missed it - the clear direction, the absolute devotion, the challenge and the drive. In its own way it was a prison to her. But Bella was accustomed to prison, and it had been so long since she had been able to fight. 

The Americans must have invaded Afghanistan by now. The wizard resistance would have had no chance against the Auror fighters. The Americans must have sent some wizards, too, and there was no conceivable way that the resistance could have battled them back - especially not with the support of the Brits. Bella spared a brief thought for the wizard she'd kept under Imperius. He'd been seething with rage when she released him, finally. She was uncertain that her grasp over the Memory Charm was sufficient to fully overwhelm his memory, but the boy's imperfectly trained magic could not make him important enough to matter, regardless of his fury. 

Her mind spun back to Hermione. She thought of the girl's focused attention as she swirled her finger over Bella's wetness just a day ago. She wondered what the girl had felt when she touched her there. Not the overwhelming lust that had blanketed Bella's mind - otherwise, she would never have pulled away. Some version, surely, of the drive that had overwhelmed Bella this morning. Hermione must have felt so helpless, and then frustrated, given the lack of option that was presented to them both.

At the time Bella had been released from Azkaban, Hermione had been even more a child. They had both been servants of their own causes, Bella more than Hermione. When had Bella had the chance to truly choose? Even now, the most-important thing was dictated by her soul mark, and not her own choice. Yet at least now, it was something that benefited herself, and not someone else. The mark forced her hand, but at least it also offered her some pleasure in return.

She had truly thought that they would win. And yet, she had never had a vision of what she'd have from that victory. There was so little to fight for, even then. There was nothing worth the battle, except this.  _ It.  _ The feeling of their bodies together.  _ Hermione Granger.  _

And now, she might have her. All of Bella yearned for that, the only victory that might actually matter to her. She shook with it, here, sitting and watching the dusk fade from the white peaks of the mountains before her. What would victory mean? Just to have her here, to hold as she had at Grimmauld in Sirius's worn chair, looking out upon the mountains instead of the dreary bricks of their neighbor in London. Or more distantly, to be held by her tightly as she had been while interred at Mungo's, her fate uncertain, the possibility of release and a life after unknown.

What did Hermione want, truly? What would make it worthwhile to her to succumb to their bond? Bella's impending trial was now done, or so it seemed, ambiguously. Hermione could not commit to a soul mate who was so embattled, so there must be some merit to the fact that Bella would not be locked up soon.

She recalled their first time at Grimmauld, the sensation of impending ending. Bella must find a place in this new world, a place Hermione approved of. She should have a home that Hermione would feel comfortable in - bright cushions and white fluffy trilling rabbit-things aside - a place in which she might want to live. And surely she wished for a world that did not disapprove of them. 

She was a student of Hogwarts for just a few more months. Bella had that much time, at least, to woo her. Some frustrated center of her being rebelled at the thought that she had to keep fighting for this. A larger part of her howled at the possibility that she might fail, and end up in the accounting of failed soul mates in her book. She knew that it would not be Hermione that lost all hope, and found herself on a path without a real ending. Certainly not. Some part of Bella was relieved to realize that the sad accounting would be of her failure alone. 

She retired to bed, wondering at the circumstances that had brought her here. Too often it was the mate that brought the pureblood down. How times had changed in the interim. It was good, Bella thought. It was right - so the pureblood houses had fallen so far, and it would be the Mudblood that was embarrassed by the forced association with the pureblood now. Too bad for the purebloods who cared. Bella only wanted Hermione. 

The morning light woke her, and she jolted out of bed, checking the clock. It was just ten before nine, barely enough time for Bella to clean herself with magic and put on her clothes. Today, she chose the tight pants that the Muggles favored, and an open-necked collared shirt of white. She thought Muddy might like it, and remembered the hungry looks Muddy had given her before in this outfit. 

She Apparated to the doorstep of Grimmauld, too impatient to sit, pacing before the door like a cat waiting for its prey to emerge from hiding. The London haze lingered above her, obscuring the sun. She resisted the urge to check the time. It was Saturday today, good timing for Bella. Muddy did not skip class for her. 

The door opened and Muddy emerged, a pretty blush on her high cheekbones. She was in a heavy jacket and pants, looking very Muggle. Bella stopped in her tracks and met Muddy's gaze, all the words stopping in her throat for a long moment. 

Then Muddy stepped forward, offering her hand, and Bella took it and spirited her away to the edge of the tiny fishing village. 

"Where are we?" Muddy asked Bella, not releasing her hand. 

"Porthmadog, Wales," Bella told her. "The closest village to my family home."

"You're Welsh?" Hermione asked her curiously.

"Londoners. Remember that Grimmauld is the house seat. Our home was a winter villa, until my father's grandfather claimed it as second in line. It's passed to the second brother ever since." Bella tipped her head down toward the docks. "I thought we could walk among the Muggles. Safe enough for me, here."

Muddy's eyes glistened and she nodded, releasing Bella's hand with seeming reluctance. Bella walked down the narrow, steep packed-earth path toward the docks, and Muddy trailed behind her. Here, too, it was overcast, the horizon obscured by heavy and low clouds.

Muddy slipped on the trail, letting out a squeak, and Bella caught her easily, although she was already halfway down. 

"Thanks," Muddy muttered, even more deeply flushed. "Clumsy of me."

"You're perfect," Bella informed her, righting her and releasing her before she was too tempted by her. 

"Hardly," Hermione sputtered, and Bella hazarded a glance at her, trying to read the tone. She looked like someone who had not heard those words enough times, which surprised Bella. Her soul mate had always seemed so confident, nearly cocky. She remembered McGonagall's assessment of the girl, that she had something to prove, and wondered whether it was more accurate than she'd thought. 

A problem for another day. Bella licked her lips, trying to remember the action plan she'd laid out for herself last night. She saw that Hermione's eyes followed the movement of her tongue, and the girl actually stumbled again, catching Bella's arm for stability. 

"Sorry," Muddy said, but didn't let her go. Bella's chest filled with warmth. She enjoyed this, maybe too much. They'd trot down the narrow dirt pathway to the village, beaus holding arms. That was something to enjoy. 

"I have a book from the Black library," Bella started. "On the soul mark. It's a history. I'm sure Hogwarts has a copy as well." 

"Is it Theodosius? The Mark over Time? Translated from the Latin?"

Bella shook her head, trying to recall the book Muddy mentioned. Failing that, she said, "Marks Through History. I read it as a child, and then when I escaped Azkaban I read it again. I told you that the mark meant nothing, and maybe it doesn't, but that book doesn't really support that conclusion. It does offer evidence that the mark has some power of coercion over its bearers. I have the sense that you don't like the Mark's influence. I thought we could start there."

They were nearing the first of the ragtag buildings at the edge of the town, and Hermione drew if possible closer to Bella, as if for comfort. 

From her position nestled against Bella's shoulder, she said with hesitation, "I hated you before we met. When I found out you were the - the other person with my mark, I thought it was a cruel fate for me. But now, I think I know you better. It's not your past that makes me hesitate, Bellatrix." The sound of her own name on Muddy's lips, enunciated in full, gave Bella a thrill. Something about the crisp punctuation on the last syllable made her name a nice sound.

Bella did not press for her to continue. They passed the first of the huts, and Bella turned their path toward the seafront. The first of the docks was to their right, weeds rampant along the marshy ground on either side. Someone had placed a few boards on the ground leading to the dock, and the boards had sunk nearly into the mud, offering little stability. But Hermione wore solid, flat-bottomed shoes, and Bella's boots did not sink deep. They stepped as one along the makeshift planks, until their steps sounded hollowly on the dock itself. 

"I don't understand what happened," Hermione said finally. She released Bella's arm and looked at her straight-on, and Bella met her gaze, missing the physical contact at once. "Why did you - what happened after that tutoring session? Why wouldn't you talk to me? Why did you leave?"

Bella breathed shallowly, trying to blink through the barrage of inquiry. She hadn't wanted to talk about this, but of course it was the first thing on Hermione's mind. 

"Is the idea of a relationship to me so repulsive?" Hermione burst out, and the tension in Bella's shoulders released instantly.

"It was not that. Not in any way. Never think that."

They had stopped halfway down the dock, and a fisherman shouldered his way between them, grunting and reeking of fish. 

Hermione looked back at Bella once the man passed, hurt in her eye, clearly unassuaged. Bella tried again. "Look, Marks Through History says that unusual pairings are common. The book posits that the mark is meant to dismantle barriers - even introduce change, perhaps force the purebloods and those with mixed ancestry to commingle. I was just thinking last night that it was a cruel irony that our mark does nearly the opposite - my house is disgraced,  _ I  _ am disgraced, and you are one of the Golden Trio, already poised to shake the foundations of the wizarding world. Trust me, Hermione, when I say that I do not in the least hold any hesitation related to our - our shared mark, or a relationship with you."

The words seemed to shock Hermione. Bella nodded her head toward the conjunction of docks just a few strides away from them, and Hermione turned to continue their walk, shooting short, inquisitive glances toward Bella as they went. 

Bella kept her eyes forward as they walked, skirting the edge of the docks. This new one was more active, better-maintained, although the boats were mostly all deployed for the morning. "You asked me in Mungo's if I loved you. I know it was a long time ago, and I was not in my right mind. But I told you I did, and I - I still feel the same. I know that you're not sure about me. I'm not asking for you to be. But I would like to court you, if I may." 

Bella hazarded a glance at Muddy, finding her expression one of disbelief. She tried to support her words. "That's why I asked you to meet me here. To ask you for that."

"I thought we were long past courting," Muddy sputtered. 

"Well, that is welcome news to me," Bella returned, too quickly. She thought again, and added, "Regardless, it is my hope to do so. You are only a few months away from graduating Hogwarts, and this is the time for courting."

They approached a run-down bench, and Bella indicated it to Hermione. Hermione took the seat, still looking sallow and shocked. 

Bella took the seat beside her, leaving a foot to spare, but looking straight at her. "I'd like the chance to know you better, Hermione Granger."

"You have that," Hermione returned, in one great huff of air. 

"I asked for Cordon Bleu for lunch today," Bella told her. "It might be too early…"

"Is it too early to ask to go to your room instead?" Hermione said, a sudden glimmer in her eye. “But only if you can tell me why you left, in October.”

Bella hesitated, remembering their encounter in the Hogwarts classroom, gun-shy and still a little hurt. “I told you. I left to pursue the Dark Lord’s Horcrux.”

“You don’t even know that he has one,” Hermione said brusquely, looking out upon the sea. 

Bella spared a glance to the sea, the dull, gray waves, lapping eagerly at the base of the docks. “I don’t want to talk about it, really.”

“You said you wanted to court me,” Hermione returned, a line in her brow. She looked stubborn, so different from the girl who’d stumbled and blushed when Bella told her she was perfect. There were so many sides to the girl, and Bella was fascinated by all of them. “I won’t - I do not want to be near you, honestly, Bellatrix. Not until you tell me what happened.”

Bella looked down at her own hands which were clutched anxiously in her lap. “I don’t know what more I can say.”

“Was it really the Dark Lord?” Hermione said fiercely, turning to her. “You didn’t mention it before. Why didn’t you tell me? I thought, all this time, that it was something that happened with us. You have to admit that our last encounter before you left - well, the time in the tutoring room - it was not - how can I say it?” She frowned, reaching for the words, her eyes tracing the line of the docks before them. “It didn’t seem to - it didn’t make me feel that we were well-suited.” She huffed and faced away from Bella completely. 

“We are,” Bella said, futilely. “The Mark shows that.”

“You’ve said a million times that you think it doesn’t,” Hermione protested, not meeting her gaze. “Anyway, you didn’t act like it then. What…” she turned to face Bella, watery-eyed. “What happened?”

“I thought you didn’t love me,” Bella admitted, speaking into her own bosom, a nauseous, vulnerable feeling blossoming in her stomach. “You never said you did, and it was stupid of me to interpret - to think that -”

Hermione smiled brightly, and it was as if the sun had emerged from the clouds, lighting only her face. Bella's heart filled with hope. 

"If that is the only thing, you should have just said something." Hermione closed the distance between them, grabbing Bella’s hand which was placed open-palmed on the bench between them.

Bella shrugged, shy, wondering if this meant that Hermione did love her, but the girl didn't say those words. Instead she said, "I thought you were rejecting me, and then when you wouldn't talk to me, after, and then left, and ignored my letters - I wondered if there was any hope of rescuing what we had."

"I shouldn't have done that. But I was hurt, too. Let me try to make up for what I've done." Bella tightened her fingers around Hermione's hand, nodding to her to ask permission. Hermione nodded back, and Bella and Apparated them both to the entry-room of the Black Manor.

Hermione cast a bright look at her, and led the way up the grand staircase, oblivious as always to the ghosts that lingered for Bella here. She skipped up the stairs two at a time, and Bella followed, long-legged but lagging somewhat in enthusiasm. She thought it was strange that the fluffy white things did not make themselves known, but perhaps not so strange - they were shy, surely, and maybe the Mudblood's presence made them moreso. 

Hermione remembered Bella's door and went directly to it, waiting there, not touching the handle. Bella mustered up a gallant smile and flung the door open before her.

As before, the bed was nicely made, although today there was no breakfast muffin waiting. Bella shut the door behind her, remembering her own hesitation when Hermione shut the door to her own room at Grimmauld. She remembered how she looked at the bookshelves, at the pictures stuck up on the walls, picking out the girl's parents. She remembered how young her parents looked, not the age Bella had imagined her parents-in-law to be. 

Then Muddy turned to face her, hair in disarray around her head, and Bella forgot all of that, overwhelmed by impending possibility. Still she waited passively for the girl to approach her. 

Hermione seemed to hesitate, and Bella smiled unwillingly at that. "Come here," she said, and Hermione took the last two steps to wrap her arms around Bella. 

Bella collapsed into her body, the sensation of fulfillment overwhelming to her. "There is no doubt to me as to what I feel," she murmured into the girl's head, her head filled with the scent of her shampoo. 

"And I need you," Muddy said in return, her voice syrupy and promising. She turned her face up, breathing heavily on Bella's neck, and Bella allowed her hands to trail down the girl's back to her waist. 

"Need, I can handle," Bella said roughly, gripping her hips. Muddy moaned shortly, and her lips latched on to Bella's neck. 

They both stilled, enjoying the sensation of their bodies connecting in that place. And then Bella pulled Hermione's head off her with a hand at the base of her neck, fingers entwined in Hermione's hair. "I want to feel you," Bella told her. She couldn't help the guttural undertones, and Muddy's gaze blackened in response, her body softening. 

Bella scooped her body up, flimsy and light as it was, and brought her to the bed. She lay her down and brought her own body on top of her, hopeful that the insistence might stop her from thinking. They hadn't yet discussed the girl's hesitation to let Bella lead, which Bella could not help but think was a rejection. 

Bella put her hand on Hermione's hip and pressed her down there, and Hermione pushed her hips up to meet the pressure, moaning, without giving any indication of an intention to reverse their positions. Bella's core ached in response, straining to  _ become,  _ but she resisted the impulse. Instead she let her leg fall between Hermione's, pushing their bodies together tightly, and Hermione hooked one leg around Bella's hip and drew her yet closer. 

Their marks sang in unison, their shoulders close enough to touch, and Bella collapsed into the sensation. 


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, folks. You may have noticed that some momentum is fading here, which means I'm committing to wrapping this little story up for us all. Act III is starting next chapter and I'm expecting it to be only three chapters long. 
> 
> I would really love to hear what you think about the next few chapters. Is there anything you really want to see or have resolved? Please drop me a note!! And thank you for coming along with me on this journey.

It couldn't be too slow, Bella thought. She'd promised her lover that she'd savor her, after all. She trembled in touching even the most innocent of places on Hermione's body - her clothed hip, the small of her back, her naked shoulder after pushing aside the light button-down shirt. Muddy seemed equally overwhelmed by this, her submission to Bella, the first. 

Bella was anxious not to ruin it. She felt all the self-consciousness she hadn't the first time their bodies met. There was pressure in this, pressure to get it right, to do more than simply offer her own body up for the taking. Their first time, she'd thought Hermione was teasing her. There was no hint of that here. 

She kissed Hermione's shoulder where she'd exposed it, and Hermione turned her face to offer her neck. Bella closed her lips around Hermione's pulse point and then bit delicately down. 

Hermione breathed out and her body rippled beneath Bella, leaving no doubt as to her supplication. Her thighs slotted against Bella's, one knee up around Bella's hip, and Bella resisted the urge to press their bodies together more tightly. Bella was gentle, nuzzling the girl's jaw, moving her hand to Hermione's right breast. She could feel the pebbled nipple through her bra. Hermione moaned low in her throat and arched her back up, practically begging for a more assertive touch.

She felt so fragile under Bella's hands. Bella was lost, afraid of giving in to her baser impulses - afraid of breaking Hermione, as Hermione had accidentally broken her - but even more, Bella dreaded getting this wrong. It was the only thing that she had to get right. A sweet longing sang in her chest, and she placed one more kiss on Hermione's jawline. Warmth pooled in her eyes, not quite becoming tears. 

"You're not going to take off my clothes, are you?" Hermione breathed. 

Bella sighed lightly. "I don't want to get this wrong," she admitted, pushing up on the palm of her hand to peer down at Hermione. Hermione was flushed, eyes bright, hands teasing along the buttons of Bella's blouse at her neck.

"I went too fast with you, didn't I?" Hermione asked, although it wasn't really a question. "Is this what you would have preferred?" 

Bella shook her head quickly, but didn't really have the words to disagree. 

"Tell me," Hermione said gently. Her hands stilled at Bella's collarbone. 

"No," Bella told her, feeling the momentum of their bodies slowing and disliking that, but enjoying the opening for communication. She was torn, distracted by the look in Hermione's eye, and incapable of putting the storm of her own feelings into words. "I love you," she finally said. "I loved everything we did together. I felt confused about what it might mean to you. That upset me." 

Hermione laughed a little. "I never thought I might be the callous one."

"I was happy to have whatever you wanted to give me, until - until I felt betrayed - I thought you were only in it for this. Mostly because it was -  _ is _ \- all I can offer you."

Hermione considered the statement for a long moment, and Bella settled her hips down on Hermione's. Bella hadn't realized that would mean she pressed more firmly on Hermione's pelvis, but the girl closed her eyes and her hips twitched upward, once and then twice, before she seemed to come into herself and still the motion. 

An answering fire lit in Bella's loins, and she fought her own personal battle to contain it, to allow Hermione to answer her, which the girl so clearly wished to do.

Bella opened her eyes to find Hermione looking deeply at her. "Tell me what you would want to offer me," Hermione said breathlessly. 

"A future," Bella said immediately. "A life. Together. Security. Safety. All the things I do not have."

Hermione rolled her eyes, wrapping her hands around the nape of Bella's neck and drawing her down for a sweet kiss. "We can make that," she mumbled against Bella's lips, nipping, sucking Bella's bottom lip between her teeth. 

Bella kissed her back firmly, and then drew away so that her breath ghosted against Hermione's lips. "How are you so sure?"

"The two of us, we can do anything." Hermione pulled Bella's shirt up, breaking a few of the buttons as she pulled it over Bella's head, and Bella helped her disentangle her arms from the garment. Hermione hummed with impatience and touched Bella's chest with an open hand, and Bella's bra as well as all of Hermione's clothing disappeared into smoke. 

"Talk later," Hermione commanded briefly, eyes fiery, and then she softened. "Okay?"

"Okay," Bella murmured, distracted by the girl's body. She was beautiful naked, the picture of femininity, sparser than Bella in some places, wiry and strong in others. The delicateness of her overwhelmed Bella briefly, but before she could become too shy, Hermione flipped them over and straddled Bella's stomach. Her strong thighs squeezed tightly and then she sank down, the trimmed hairs at the apex of her thighs scratching Bella's stomach as her wetness contacted Bella's skin. 

Bella arched her back, and Hermione ground down, pushing upright. Bella gripped her hips, feeling a comforting familiarity in the pose, inexorably enticed by Hermione's new nakedness. 

Hermione moaned and lowered her body into Bella's, pressing their naked breasts together. "You're so soft," she whispered, and captured Bella's lips as she moved herself against Bella's skin rhythmically. The curtain of her hair eclipsed Bella's vision, encasing them, alone together. 

Bella's hand drifted from the girl's hips to tease at the top of Hermione's mound, and Hermione took one hand and maneuvered Bella's thumb downward. 

Bella found the upright nub against her thumb quickly and circled experimentally, and Hermione closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against Bella's, hips stilling receptively. 

Bella moved her thumb harder, and Hermione shuddered, inching up on Bella's stomach.  _ Inside,  _ her body screamed. Hermione was as wet as she had ever imagined. Her vision blacked out, consumed by the sensation of touching, inching toward her opening. She seemed vast to Bella, suddenly - delicate no longer, hungry, all-consuming. Bella wanted to sate her fully. She jogged her hips, and Hermione raised hers, offering. 

Bella turned her hand and placed her forefinger between Hermione's folds, and Hermione lowered herself down, breath catching. She wasn't vast - she was tight, Bella's finger barely fit - but Bella curved her finger up toward her inner wall, and Hermione's body shook. 

"Yes," Hermione hissed. "Oh, yes, Bellatrix Black,  _ yes." _

She pressed down, and then hissed again, something in her body breaking. She stilled, and then said, "Harder. Need you. Take me."

Bella removed her hand and put it on Hermione's hip, catching a glimpse of blood on her knuckles. She turned them over again, settling Hermione into the pillows. She kissed her, and Hermione grabbed her hand and put it back between her legs. 

"Need you," Hermione moaned again. 

Bella pressed back inside, and Hermione's thighs tightened around her hips. She set a slow pace, keeping her finger inside as Hermione had with her, focusing on her outer wall, attempting to find her clit again with her thumb. She was so wet that the effort seemed almost futile, but when her hips twitched, Bella made the motion again.

"Perfect," Hermione told her, arching her back, and Bella was confident enough to dip her head and take one nipple between her teeth. Hermione thrust twice, and then the most incredible flowering of her body happened, drawing Bella's finger more deeply inside her, swelling and then breaking, sweetly. Bella felt something in her core blossom in return, and she shook, wondering with some small part of her mind whether this was what had made Hermione's body sing when she touched her. 

They settled briefly, and then Hermione's legs wrapped around Bella's and her pants puffed away into smoke. Their naked thighs brushed each other as Bella drew her knees up, and then Bella drove her finger back into Hermione, reckless, abandoning all inhibition. Hermione opened her legs up again, and Bella engaged a second finger. She slipped inside and paused until Hermione thrust upward, and they moved together like the ocean's waves. 

  
  
  


It was dusk when they woke up from the haze of sex and sleep that had consumed them both. Hermione stirred first, waking Bella. 

She'd found that she didn't mind Hermione's fingers inside her, not when she was pressing her hips down on her and her fingers were returning the motion. Not when Hermione was riding her stomach, her fingers teasing at Bella's apex, her breasts bouncing, the rays of the noon sun casting a shadow across their bodies. Bella found that she wanted little else but to have her lover in her bed. To share a few impossible dreams seemed almost a pastime. She remembered the sensation of timelessness, and recognized it for what it was: a self-fulfulling prophecy. She willed it not to be so. She said it out loud, and Hermione laughed with a lilting tone and said she willed it, too.

Now, Hermione rolled in the bed and went rooting for something in the sheets. She found it, turning to Bella with a bright smile. 

_ "Felix,"  _ Bella said wonderingly. "You managed it."

Hermione giggled, pressing it into Bella's hand. "I said I'd give it to you. You doubted me?"

"I shouldn't think that anything was beyond your abilities," Bella said to her, although she did turn the vial around in her hand. The dying sun lit the potion up in red. "Nobody but the most skilled potioners have ever made  _ Felix." _

"I was taught by the best."

"Snivellus himself," Bella acknowledged, and Hermione frowned, briefly. 

"That is a cruel name for a good man," she said. 

Bella measured her up. "You'd like me to abandon all my predispositions, wouldn't you?" she asked her, calculating. 

"Only your cruel ones," Hermione told her. "You haven't called me Muddy for a while, now."

"True," Bella said, tracing a line up her Muddy hips to the swell of her breast. She dipped her head and bit her nipple, and Hermione arched her back up into it. They strained against each other for release, but were too worn out to find it.

"Would a Wizangamot seat aid in your ambitions?" Bella asked a good while later, as their sweat cooled together and the last of the daylight slipped blue-and-gray from the sky. 

"Political ambitions?" Muddy asked archly, propping her head up on one arm, tracing Bella's essential juices in a straight line down her sternum. "Do you think that I aspire to more than my Muggleborn name would attest?"

"Surely you have political ambitions?" 

"Of course I do," Muddy told her. She kissed her deeply. "I think you need to keep the seat for now."

"For now. Say, the next three months?" Bella mumbled against her lips. 

Muddy brought her wet hand between Bella's legs, and they both were speechless once again. 

  
  


Sunday noontime, they went to Hogsmeade. The village was not well-equipped for shopping that exceeded the boundaries of sweets and alcohol for visiting students, and the occasional illicit potion for the more dangerous of the bunch, but it was a nice change of pace for Bella, and familiar to Hermione. The security of having a wand made Bella utterly uninterested in wearing a false face, and Hermione did not mention it to her. 

The trip was pleasant, until Bella felt the unwelcome  _ scry _ upon her. She jumped nearly out of her skin, dragging Hermione into a forgotten corner of Honeyduke's. 

"He's watching," she informed Hermione briefly, gripping her shoulder in what was likely an excessively tight grip.

Hermione glanced about the well-lit store with curiosity. "Now?" she said. She was far too unconcerned for Bella's comfort. 

_ "Yes, now,"  _ Bella hissed at her. "He's watching us."

"I'll find him," Hermione told her. She brushed at Bella's hands, and Bella released her reluctantly. 

"It is the Dark Lord," she told Hermione. The girl only looked at her. 

"And if it isn't?" she asked her. "If it's somebody you hurt, long ago, who hasn't forgiven you? Someone from whom you must earn forgiveness?"

"It isn't!" Bella's skin crawled with the sensation of being  _ watched. _ "I have no enemies but the Dark Lord!"

"You have many enemies, Bellatrix Black," Hermione said. Her eyes seemed to bore into Bella. She seemed like a stranger, not the lover Bella had woken up to in her bed, not the woman who carried her matching mark. Bella stepped away. "You have many enemies, none of whom are as evil as I think you imagine."

Bella gripped her wand with cold fingers and Apparated back to the Black Mansion. The bag of treats she'd collected with Hermione clattered loosely on the ground at Honeyduke's, and Hermione picked them up and purchased them with her own packet, bringing them back to Hogwarts with her. 


	22. Act III: The Making of Pieces

On the right side of the long, narrow table there was a tall stack of books. The left side held a snorter stack, and between the two, Bellatrix Black was slowly coming to the welcome thought that she'd found it. 

It had been a long, thankless search. Narcissa had been characteristically silent, although Bella had received on her desk a fairly impersonal invitation to a "small gathering" to celebrate Ostara, which she'd summarily ignored. It wasn't that she felt snubbed - it was more that she was far too busy engulfing her psyche in this seemingly fruitless, academic search in the Black archives and thought that the invitation was likely a courtesy. 

Narcissa must have been relieved that her universally reviled sister did not attend her gathering. Bella was not in the mood for anything but books and wine, anyway, and wouldn't have been good company. Not that she ever was. 

It was Thursday. Muddy had not written her, and Bella continued to write short notes to her and then burn them. The smoke from the burnt letters only contributed to the haze of cigarette smoke which dissipated only temporarily through mid-morning and began to build again after Bella had muddled through the process of waking up. 

But - this, a short reference to a curse-breaking amulet stored in the crypt of the long-deceased Humboldt line, derived from the Blacks centuries ago - this seemed to be a possible solution to the problem Bella had bent herself to solve. Perhaps the crypt was untouched. What a foolish effort, to bury the dead with their artifacts, but in the 1700s it was popular. The wizards of that time believed in life after death - the influence of Evangelism had lingered long in this line - and a particular son had been born with an abnormality that had led to death in childhood. The father had hoped that in burying an amulet with him, they might ease his suffering in the afterlife. It was possible that this was the only account of that ancient burying place, here in the Black estate. 

It was too good to pass up. Bella blinked the haze of wine from her eyes and gripped her wand tightly, summoning a broom which knocked impatiently at the library door until Bella finally heard the sound, wrenching herself from the chair.

It was nearly midnight. Bella considered asking the elves for an espresso shot, but decided against it. The creatures all slept at night, and she didn't really need it. Excitement was ever so rousing. 

She Apparated to the place in her memory that was closest to the burial site, near Berlin, and then mounted the broom and flew. She remembered the location marked in the Black annals. The wind whipped through her hair eagerly, and she bent down and reveled in it. It was nice to be outdoors. To have some purpose. The sensation was nearly one of relief. 

The burial place was near a ruined castle. Bella rounded the parapets and then landed near a stand of trees. The crypt's entrance was partially collapsed, consumed by the vegetation, dreary and inspiring to Bella in her partially sober and certainly disconsolate state of mind. 

She wrenched open the door, enjoying the physical exertion, and lit her wand as she descended down the stairs. The crypt was longer than she imagined it would be. Long rows of stone coffins sat untouched in the uncertain light. 

Bella sent a few globes of light before her, imagining ghosts and skeletal warriors, although nothing obstructed her pathway as she winded her way, peering carefully at each tomb. 

_ Henry Humboldt, _ read the inscription at the base of the narrow, short coffin she finally found. She cracked open the coffin using the tip of her dagger and slid the top away from the base.

There was no burial stench, no hint of musk in the air. There was only a small skeleton, and a palm-sized amulet on a golden chain.

Bella wrenched the amulet off the skeleton, which gave way easily to her desecration. Then she looked around, counting the remaining coffins. The ambulet burned promisingly against her fingers. 

She deposited the thing in her bag and took the short step to the next coffin, dagger in hand. 

  
  


"You missed Ostara," Narcissa said when Bella arrived, haggard and windswept, on her doorstep that morning. 

"I doubted you would mind," Bella told her gruffly, shouldering her way past her sister and through the door. "Have you any whiskey?"

"It's a quarter past ten!" Narcissa protested, although she led Bella to the drawing-room and swept one elegant hand at the cabinet. 

Bella picked out the sturdiest-looking crystal she could find and poured a tall, neat glass for herself. She took the largest seat, the one Draco had used when she was last here, and looked around appraisingly. She'd run out of cigarettes last night, and was bitter with her past self for the piggishness. 

"I was in the middle of correspondence, Bella," Narcissa told her, hovering still at the doorway. "Did you need something? You ran out of whiskey in Wales, perhaps?"

"I'm celebrating," Bella told her carefully. Her head spun with triumph mingled with exhaustion. This qualified easily as a late night for her. She wondered at what point she'd lap a normal day, and thought this must be what using a Time-Turner felt like. "Found what I needed."

"If this has something to do with that Granger girl -" Narcissa started, uptight and primping, and Bella interrupted her. 

"It's everything to do with you. Cissy, I think I found a cure for your curse."

"Do tell," Narcissa said reluctantly. 

Bella dug around in her bag, nicking her finger on an unsheathed weapon and cursing, and then she withdrew the amulet. "Said to cure a body of debilitating disease," Bella told her carefully, turning the thing around in her fingers. It glowed in the dimness, drawn curtains suffocating the light of day and leaving everything in gray shadows. The amulet glowed sea-green. "Will you try it?"

"A ugly thing," Narcissa told her, but she approached and examined it without touching. 

"I thought fashion would be the last thing on your mind." Bella grinned and offered the amulet to Narcissa. 

"You didn't make this," Narcissa stated.

"Of course not," Bella said. "I'm no jeweler. But try it on."

Narcissa took the amulet and, without another word, put it over her head. Then she collapsed onto the ground in an unconscious heap. 

  
  


Draco was called, although he was tardy. A healer from St. Mungo's appeared. Narcissa was moved to a guest bedroom, and revived on her own volition shortly before the healer tried a spell on her.

"Are you all right?" Bella asked her archly from the corner. She'd taken liberties with the scotch, and slurred. 

Narcissa's hand clutched at her breast. "Where is it?" she asked in a panic. 

"Here," Bella told her, dangling the necklace from one finger.

"Give it back," Narcissa demanded, nearly leaping from the bed.

"Ah-ah." Bella held the amulet away from her. "What happened?"

"It - it burned, Bella, but like pins and needles, nothing unnatural. It worked!" Narcissa held her hand out, looking petulant, and Bella placed the amulet around her neck again.

Narcissa sat abruptly on the bed, looking woozy, but she stayed conscious and Bella held her shoulders, watching her youngest sister carefully. 

A slow, triumphant smile overtook Narcissa's features. "It works. The pain in my legs is fading. I can feel my toes!"

_ Brilliant _ , Bella thought, or said. "Brilliant." She eyed the bed. "Is this room taken?"

"Please, sister," Narcissa said, and then she stood up and left the room.

"I'll just - be leaving - " the healer said awkwardly. Bella didn't have time for his awkwardness, and collapsed bonelessly, face-first into the plush cushions of the bed. 

  
  


An owl pecked at her shoulder, waking her, and Bella's throat prickled dryly. The light of dusk barely penetrated the heavy blinds. It took Bella a long moment to realize where she was.

The owl pushed a tight, rolled-up letter into her face peremptorily, and Bella groaned and spat at it. It hopped once and cocked its head at her. 

She rolled onto her back and unfurled the letter, which read, "Where are you, Bella?" 

It was Hermione's handwriting. Bella groaned, bringing a hand to her forehead, and Apparated to the Black Mansion foyer. 

Some excitement was happening in the kitchens, which was not unusual, and Bella ignored the sound in favor of the grand staircase. Hermione had expelled Bella's ghosts, somehow, and she was not afraid of it any longer. The girl's presence was strong here, drawing Bella forward. 

As Bella expected, she was in her room. She wore black trousers and a printed t-shirt, and was sitting at Bella's desk examining some papers there.

Bella rushed forward with mingled embarrassment. She hadn't burned all the letters - some lay as drafts on the table - Muddy's face was flushed. 

"I thought you'd expect me here. It's Friday night," Muddy said, as if to deflect blame for snooping.

"I slept through the day at Narcissa's," Bella explained, stopping in her tracks. Muddy was standing, flushed and frowning. "And no, I didn't expect you. You didn't write."

"Nor did you. If I'd thought courting meant -"

"You know who's been scrying me," Bella interrupted her, and then reconsidered her approach. "Olena and Yat have prepared something for tonight, unless I'm mistaken. Would you come down for dinner?" She swallowed dryly, and Hermione gave her a short, measuring look, and nodded.

Bella cleaned herself with a spell as she followed in Hermione's wake back down the stairs to the dining-room. It was set, a bottle of wine open but glasses not poured, steaming sweet pork chops with broccoli and potatoes waiting for them on plates. Bella let Hermione pick her seat on one side of the table, and Bella took the other. She drank the glass of water that was set out and then refilled her glass from the beaker and drank it again. 

"Thirsty?" Hermione asked, an eyebrow arched. 

"And hungry," Bella told her. "Haven't been keeping the best hours."

"That isn't attractive," Hermione told her.

Bella snorted. "Duly noted." 

To her surprise, Hermione grinned in return. "You're cocky for someone who took off without warning in our last meeting."

"You're smug and I'd like to know why." Bella eyed Hermione and then dug into the potatoes. 

Hermione cut her pork delicately, focusing on the food, and Bella waited. 

"I didn't know what was going on until after your trial," she said finally. "After you told me that you thought the Dark Lord was alive. I mentioned it to a friend, and he was - he was fairly sorry for spying on you, I'll have you know."

"Potter," Bella mumbled darkly through a large mouthful of pork. 

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Why does everyone always assume that it is Harry? Usually it's not. You know."

"Weasley?" Bella asked. The food was doing wonders for her mood. She wasn't even angry, just curious. 

"Ron isn't smart enough to figure out a scrying spell that you couldn't trace," Muddy told her. "And luckily, he's given up on me. He figures, apparently, that he doesn't have much of a chance against a soul mark."

Bella nodded, pursing her lips. She looked at Muddy, and the girl seemed briefly ensorcelled by her gaze, which lit a new hunger in Bella's stomach. 

"I never enjoyed competition."

Hermione scoffed. "He was  _ never, _ never competition for you."

Bella pushed away from the table and stood, circling the table's head to approach Muddy. "So who, pray tell, is foolish enough to attempt to spy on me?" she asked low in her throat.

Muddy didn't answer. She gestured briefly at the door and it slammed closed, leaving them alone. She wrapped her arms around Bella's shoulders and kissed her, a shallow peck that became a deep, ravenous kiss. 

Bella traced the kiss down Muddy's neck and hiked up her shirt, palming her breasts. Muddy arched her back and allowed Bella to lead her against the table, and Bella swept away the dishes and undid the girl's pants eagerly. She forgot the question she'd been pursuing in favor of placing Muddy's bare ass on the table and her own fingers against Muddy's wetness, tracing her slit up to caress the upright nub of her desire. 

Muddy opened up her thighs to Bella, holding tight to her neck, and Bella plunged two eager fingers inside, hooking instantly upward to press against her. 

Muddy gasped and fell backward, thrusting her hips hard and fast against Bella's hand, riding her. "Take me," she ground out, teeth bared. "Bellatrix Black, take me, make me - make me yours. I'm yours."

"You're mine," Bella growled fiercely, answering stroke for stroke, and Hermione's body gripped her fingers tightly. They moved together, insatiable. 

It was dark and they were back in Bella's bed before Bella remembered the question she had. "Who has been spying on me?"

"The son of some people you badly hurt," Muddy told her, tracing a line along Bella's arm.

"You won't tell me who." It was a statement and not a question. 

"I won't," Hermione sang, a smile teasing the edge of her lips. "But I can promise you that he won't be watching you any more."

"He'd like to kill me," Bella muttered half-heartedly. She wanted to bury her face in Muddy's breasts, just between them, so that her cheeks were against each small, soft peak. They looked so appetizing there, naked and so accessible, only just slightly heavy enough to make a curve away from Hermione's skin. 

So she did. Hermione kissed the top of her head, wrapping her arms around her. "What are you doing?" she asked Bella.

"Just what I want," Bella told her, voice muffled. "Am I supposed to simply trust you, and not be afraid?"

"Trust me," Hermione murmured. "Yes. I'll protect you, Bella. You don't have anything left to be afraid of."

Bella's response was fully muffled but as completely satisfied.

  
  


Bellatrix finished laying the various artifacts and weapons she'd acquired from the Humboldt vault on the table at the exact moment that the Gringotts family goblins emerged from her Floo. They gave her sidelong looks, not speaking much, focusing nearly all their energy on examining the relics. 

One offered a price, and Bella accepted it without trying to bargain. These were goblin-made goods, like most valuable objects in the world. And Bella had no use for them at all. 

They arranged payment and transfer. Before the last of the goblins departed, he turned around, a deep frown in his eye, but something else as well. "There is a vault we have been unable to access. We know where it is, but without wands… we would appreciate your… assistance, if you're - if you would."

Bella raised both eyebrows and then nodded shortly. "Send me a map and I will dispatch your problem."

"You don't need to - dispatch anything. Just retrieve what has been stolen. We will await your letter."

Bella nodded, and the goblin disappeared through the Floo. 


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally back and committed to finishing this up, come hell or high water. Do please let me know if there's anything you want to see resolved in the next chapter, my last <3 and thank you for sticking with me to the end, everyone!

Graduation day at Hogwarts started with a thick fog that withdrew, in short bursts and measures, slowly up into the hills as the day progressed. The sky’s brightness peaked at noon and then withered away into the afternoon.

Bellatrix Black had never seen Hermione nervous. Of all the things she might have expected to excite the emotion in the girl, it wouldn’t have been the event of her graduation. Having been denied the opportunity of being Head Girl, Hermione seemed to have pinned her hopes on valedictorian. But the top student from each house had been informed, and told to prepare a speech, and Hermione hadn’t heard anything from McGonagall at all. 

She was a mess of nerves and fury as a result. Bella had helped with her hair that morning, a rare and arcane ritual that Hermione had planned for, and then decided not to do, and then reneged on that plan as of midnight the night before. The Black Mansion had the ingredients, but Hermione rejected them as too old and thus expired, so Bella subjected herself to the unpleasant experience of Diagon Alley at the crack of dawn that Saturday. It was a testament to how her day would turn out, that the first person who spotted her took a photograph of her, and the second person sent a stinging hex at her heel and Apparated away before she’d finished turning around. 

She met Narcissa at the gates of the Hogwarts grounds, and they walked in together. 

“You could have at least worn something nice,” her sister murmured to her under her breath. Narcissa was wearing robes of green satin that were accented with gold lacing.

“These are my dress robes.” Bella wasn’t surprised by her sister’s criticism. It honestly hadn’t been something she was thinking about much. She’d been far too focused on Hermione to worry about something as menial as her own wardrobe. 

“Then I’ll bring you to my tailor,” Narcissa sniffed. Anticipating a question that Bella would never ask, she said, “At least we can repurpose some of my old robes for you.” The Malfoy’s estate was nearly all gone, through a combination of penalties and voluntary donations. It had been a long, expensive year for the Malfoys. They weren’t the only purebloods who were under new financial strain, but under Narcissa’s leadership they were certainly the family that was most openly and publicly paying reparations. They had the farthest to go - that was what Narcissa said, anyway. Everyone knew that the Malfoy Manor was, for many months last year, the Dark Lord’s headquarters. It had all been announced at the Easter party that Bella snubbed. Her absence was assumed to be political, which is why Bella quickly became Narcissa’s favorite arm candy during any and all public appearances thereafter. 

Including this one. Bella didn’t want to imagine whether Hermione would actually have invited her to her Hogwarts graduation, but luckily for their still-developing trust in each other, the question was circumvented by Narcissa’s invitation. “Draco is our family’s only true heir,” Narcissa had said once, meaning the Blacks, to which Bella had raised an eyebrow but no comment.

What she did was invite Narcissa for dinner at the Black Mansion, their childhood home, in the highest reaches of the Snowdon Massif mountains of Wales. The free elves happily served them in the smaller dining room. Hermione talked with Draco about schoolwork and friends. Nymphadora was absorbed with Teddy. Bella caught up with Andy, who’d started back at Mungo’s, leaving Narcissa to watch each pair with a look of increasing inquisitiveness. 

Her sister was old-fashioned, but clearly realized that the old world order, which had been of such benefit to her in her life, was most definitively now over. She watched, and listened, and learned. From Draco most of all, Bella thought, as she herself observed Draco quite clearly working to ingratiate himself with his future aunt-in-law. Narcissa was nothing if not a survivor, and she would survive this. 

At least Bella's robes were not ill-suited to the cold weather, she thought as she saw Narcissa openly shiver. The Quidditch arena was decked out in the colors of the houses, and extra stadium stands were set up on the ground before each of the tall tower stands. There was a circular platform erected in the center of the arena, and the graduating students were seated facing the platform, green, red, blue, and yellow-robed. Bella pitied the graduates whose coloring did not fit their House's color, thinking with not a small amount of smugness that Hermione could not be lovelier than in red. 

Each class was only twenty students, and the upper seats were only sparsely populated by the proud parents of students who’d been too late to fill the lower arena seats. Bella had been taught that it was the corruption of magical blood that led to the low wizarding population, but she couldn’t help but remember her own graduating class from Hogwarts, which numbered only fifteen in Slytherin. There were more students now, not fewer. A basic data point that had somehow escaped the purebloods’ attention. 

McGonagall stood from her seat with the rest of the professors, in a ring around the edges of the graduates, and approached the podium, which was located on a slowly rotating stand so as not to favor any one House. 

Her speech was brief, and each of the Houses’ speakers said their piece. All of them referred to House unity, but none more than the Slytherin girl. The students seemed like children to Bella, and for not the last time she felt some embarrassment about her very much romantic relationship with their classmate. Hermione didn't seem like a child to Bella - but she was young, and Bella could not allow herself to forget that. 

“This year,” McGonnagal said, “We will be doing something a little different. Rather than the head of each House awarding the diplomas to students in their own House, we will be announcing our graduates according to their performance on their NEWTS.” She went into a short rant about how the Wizarding Examinations Authority’s grades did or did not relate to the professors’ independent evaluations of their students, which lost Bella’s attention quickly. She picked out Hermione’s head from among the Gryffindor students, noticing for the first time that Hermione was placed on the far left of the group, and in the first row.

Unsurprisingly, she was the first to be called. “Seven NEWTS of E or higher, Hermione Granger.” Hermione beamed, visible clearly to Bella from her seat in the second row of the gallery. Draco placed in the first third of the group, and Narcissa clapped loudly and stood, for a few seconds, prompting Bella to look over at the Gryffindor side of the stadium seats. She’d been so focused on watching Hermione that she neglected to check the stands for her soulmate’s elusive parents - who she had reason to believe would be attending - whom Hermione went to meet, after she left Bella’s home this morning.

Bella didn’t expect to meet them. But she did wonder if the Mudblood hesitated to introduce them because of Bella’s cavalier attitude toward Muggles generally. Or her use of that slur to refer to her soulmate, which Bella had only in the past few months been able to shake completely. 

The last of the graduates was called - Flitwick had made a point to say that the last twenty graduates were all tied at zero NEWTS, and the ordering was by last name - and then the ceremony was concluded, and Bella faltered. She wished to go directly to Hermione, but she was seated at the Slytherin stand with Narcissa, and moreover, her soulmate hadn’t told her what to do. A deep-seated feeling of inadequacy filled her chest, and she trailed Narcissa down to the green with a sense of dread. 

The decision had been made for her. Bella spotted Hermione standing right next to Draco over the crowd. Potter and Weasley were the foci of her attention, but two graying Muggles stood beside them. She saw Weasley turn to them quickly, having inadvertently made eye contact with the boy, and she ducked her head and stuck close to Narcissa’s side. 

Hermione turned quickly around when she heard Narcissa’s voice, and beckoned Bella. Bella was drawn forward as if by an inexorable force, lead-footed. 

“Mum, Da - I’d really like you to meet Bellatrix. Bella, my parents, Wendell and Jean." 

"A pleasure," Bella said, inclining her head. When the gentleman extended his hand, she stared at it blankly before understanding, and extended her own to shake it, finding his grip dry and somewhat limp. The woman offered her hand as well, and Bella shook her hand, too. That grip was firm, and the woman gave her a telling once-over.

"Bellatrix - as I mentioned, she is as much the hero of the Last War as Harry is. And she's a good - a good friend. I'd like to have you all together for dinner soon." Hermione blushed crimson. 

"Better, I'll have you over at mine," Bella offered, focusing her eyes on the two of them. "Whenever you find the time."

"Oh, we're not too busy," the man said. "Although it's not an easy trek here from Australia. Easier than flying, though!" He grinned innocently at Bella, and Bella mustered a smile in return, mind spinning. There was still much that Hermione kept apart from her, but surely the girl - if she'd intended to introduce Bella to her parents - could have managed to arrange a less awkward venue for it. 

"I didn't realize that you knew how to use brooms," Bella said. Confusion marred the parents' expressions, and she cursed internally. Nobody would fly brooms from Australia. Wendell must have meant something else. 

"Oh, Draco," Hermione interjected quickly. "You must come to our graduation party at the Burrow. Unless you're busy?"

Draco turned from his mother and shot Hermione a winning smile. "I wouldn't miss that for the world. What time?"

"We're going directly from here," Hermione told him. 

"Then I might leave early, but I'll come straightaway after this." The exchange was forced, and Weasley was not successful at repressing a grimace, but - it was something, some bridge being built, and Bella realized that  _ she  _ was not invited tonight and was not, for purposes beyond reality, Hermione's soulmate. At least in this context. 

It made sense. The Grangers had no sense of what the mark meant. And Hermione was so young. The casual context of their introduction was meant to gradually ease Bella into Hermione's family life. It was not a snub - it was tactical, considered. Bella only wished Hermione had warned her. 

No matter. She let the young people drift away, Draco going to some of his Slytherin classmates, Hermione to the boys, and Bella was adrift in the sea of color. Her sister was adrift with her, though. Bella was relieved that she'd chosen black for her robes. Green and red would make a riotous combination in any context. 


	24. Chapter 24

Grimmauld did not seem as dank and dreary now, but maybe it was the fact that the house, for maybe the first time in Bella's living memory, was actually full. It was Harry Potter's birthday, and the dining table was heavily laden with dishes. For her own part, Bella had brought a case of wine. She was gratified to note that she was the only one who'd thought to do it - and spotted many of the guests clutching a goblet in one fist. It had been a good present to bring, although Bella hadn’t had the chance to enjoy any herself. 

She was on the hunt for Nymphadora. Teddy had her hair in a tight grip and was pounding on her chest, mumbling and whining disconsolately, and she thought she'd probably done her time babysitting by now. In the kitchen, Molly Weasley gave her a sharp look over a few boiling pots of water. In the drawing-room, Hermione tried waving her over to where she was speaking with the Longbottom boy. Bella shook her head, pointing at Teddy's reddening face and moving on.

In the entry hallway, she found Ginny Weasley speaking with a few of the active Aurors, including her own brother. One wore an eye patch reminiscent of Mad Eye.

"Any idea where Nymph - um, Tonks is?" she asked the group. If anyone might know, it would be the girl's co-workers. 

"Upstairs, I heard," they told her. "You might want to knock!" Ginny's voice filtered after her as she made her way up the steps, around the landing, and toward Nymphandora's room. 

She did knock, and after a silent, empty pause, she bellowed, "Nymphadora, please attend to your son. He's about to bite one of my fingers off!"

The door opened a moment later to the face of a woman so striking that Bella nearly fell on her ass. Her mind buzzed briefly with a foreign feeling of intense infatuation, and then she recognized it - the woman must be part-Veela. Both the blond woman and Nymphandora were flushed, and Bella glimpsed untucked shirts before raising an eyebrow and shoving the toddler into his mother's hands. She stormed back down the stairs without another word, looking for Hermione.

She found her still attached at the hip to the Longbottom boy. The boy watched Bella’s face searchingly, licking wine-stained lips. 

"Have you met?" Hermione asked Bella. 

"Frank and Alice Longbottoms' son," Bella said. "What is your name?"

The boy stuttered a bit and then said, "Neville." He did not offer his hand. 

"A pleasure," Bella said stiffly.

"Neville has been on the Wizengamot since he graduated last year," Hermione informed Bella. "He's been getting me up to speed on the workings of the position."

"Ah, yes," Bella said, frowning. "Good. I'm sure that will be helpful for your first meeting."

"Yeah," Hermione said. “I think so. Many of the members holding pureblood seats are also part of a - somewhat secret, separate society as well. I thought I might join with them earlier than September.” 

Neville shifted his feet, looking like he wasn’t happy Hermione had shared that tidbit with Bella. Bella met his eye and decided to cut directly to the chase. “I suppose I owe you an apology. For what I did to your parents.”

The boy flushed, and Bella worked to remember what he’d said during her strawman trial by the Wizengamot tribunal. She hadn’t been paying very close attention to it, but it mattered - didn’t it? Surely it mattered to Hermione. And what mattered to Hermione mattered to Bella.

“I did many things that I regret now. I was brainwashed, and incapable of behaving like - like a human being, really. It’s no excuse. But I wanted you to know that I do regret it, and - and I have changed.” 

Bella grimaced. Her words tasted dusty and stale on her tongue. She sighed. “Look - I’m still learning. It’s not fair that I am standing before you now, free, and your parents are still locked away. Hermione may not have told you, but last summer I was nearly in the same state as they are now. I was nearly out of my mind. If there was anything I could do about your parents, I would, but I’m no healer and minds cannot be fixed by magic once they are broken.”

“I know that,” Neville mumbled. His lips were pressed together in a tight line. 

Bella leaned forward. “I will tell you one thing, however. I am working on some - some odd jobs for a confidential client. The work involves ancient magicks, mostly objects infused with magical power. I found something that cured my sister’s illness a few months ago. I will keep my eye out for something that might help your parents.”

The boy’s expression cleared a little. “Thanks,” he said shortly. “And, ah… I suppose I owe you an apology, too.”

“You do?” Bella said in surprise.

“Yeah. Oh, I thought Hermione told you! She didn’t?”

“I did,” Hermione said, giving Bella a long, meaningful look.

_ Oh, _ Bella thought in shock. She could feel her face drain of color. “That scry really got me into a spot of trouble,” she told him, unable to keep the note of bitterness out of her tone. “It was - terrible. How did you do it?”

“There’s an old network of, um, tree-spirits that are all connected. I found the network, and since - since you were walking free, like you said, I - I wanted to be sure that you weren’t hurting anyone, or plotting, or - you know.” He grimaced and shrugged, burly shoulders held tightly. “I thought if you found me out, at least maybe you’d kill me and then you’d go back to Azkaban or somewhere worse.”

“Afghanistan is the new Azkaban, and that’s where I went. Because of the scry.” 

“I know,” Neville said. “Didn’t you wonder why it seemed to disappear there? It’s because there was no birchwood to look through.”

“I… I didn’t,” Bella said, and then revised it. “Well, I did, but thought I knew the reason.” She sighed. “All right, I suppose - I forgive you. Hermione said that it wouldn’t happen again, and it hasn’t, but I must admit to a certain sense of - um, relief, to know at least what was going on.” _ To know that it was just a child who sent me skittering away from the only thing I cared about. _She actually felt a twinge of embarrassment at her own overreaction.

Neville nodded and began sidling away from them, and Bella nodded curtly at him. “All right. Take care. I am sure that I will see you at future events.” _ Unfortunately. _ When she turned away from him, Hermione was smiling at her with some soft look in her eye, and Bella’s unhappiness faded instantly away. She dropped her hand to her side, entwining her fingers with Hermione’s, and her chest filled with warmth. 

“Better?” Hermione whispered.

Bella chuckled. “I suppose I am better,” she said quietly. She looked around the room, seeing little of interest to her except Hermione. 

“Did you want to go find Andromeda?” Hermione asked her. “I’m sure she’s around here somewhere.”

“And hear more about that incredibly dull man she apparently intends to marry? I think not!” Unconsciously, her left hand slipped into the pocket of her robes, fiddling. It still wasn’t time. It would never be time, she thought with frustration. 

Hermione drifted away from her, leaving Bella to her own thoughts. She went to the table with the wine and poured a glass from the last bottle, trying a sip of it. It was as good as the price tag had indicated it should be. 

Hermione, she noticed, was not drinking. Neither was the guest of honor, Harry Potter. So she’d have to remain at least mostly sober. Funny, that the nineteen year olds were less interested in alcohol than the older guests. She spotted Arthur Weasley stumbling as he moved toward one of the toilets, and smiled into her glass, thinking smugly that she likely knew where at least one of the bottles had gone.

And Hermione might come back with her to the Black Mansion tonight, but nearly all her belongings were still in her room at Grimmauld and not in Bella’s room. When the young witch was at work in the Ministry, or back here at Grimmauld, the old mansion felt far, far too large for Bella. She’d begun sleeping some nights under the stars, rather than returning to the emptiness there. 

Well, her puppies were coming next week, and would stay for a week. The kids even seemed excited about it. Two of their mothers would come as well, which… wasn’t the worst thing that could possibly happen. Bella understood why they might want to monitor their children around Bella, this first time, although she also thought that probably nothing would be more awkward than seeing her ex-lovers for the first time in twelve or thirteen years. And, just as icing on the cake, it meant that Hermione had insisted upon joining as well. So the Black Mansion would be at least half-full. At least the house elves wouldn’t run rampant with their furry animals for that week. Maybe. 

Finding Bella sitting alone beside one of the open windows in the drawing-room, Nymphadora shoved Teddy back into Bella’s arms. Bella found that she didn’t mind it much. The kid shrieked happily at her when she made a face at him, and she took one of the mustier tomes from a nearby book shelf and let him slowly, with clumsy, round baby fingers, tear out a few pages. 

“Bella,” he babbled. 

“Teddy,” she answered him, placing a kiss on the back of his head and breathing in his fresh baby smell. 

  
  


Hermione arrived at the Black Mansion around seven at night, bone-deep exhaustion numbing her skin. She hadn't told Bella that she was coming; honestly she hadn't been sure she would, but she thought her lover seemed lonely. Especially after yesterday's party. Bella had left Grimmauld after dinner, and Hermione had stayed up late with the boys and Ginny. It had been a late Sunday for Hermione, and she hadn't wanted to risk Apparating that late at night for no good cause. She'd thought she'd send at least a note that morning, but hadn't found the time.

The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures had finally cracked a prominent beast trading ring. Beast trading was an activity that was prohibited under international wizarding law, and the department formulated a strategy on how to proceed with the arrests last week. It wasn't expected for her to do any of the field work, but some part of Hermione actually missed using her wand for anything but transportation and heating up the odd teacup, so she'd asked to come along. And it had been thrilling, to a certain extent. But exhausting. She didn’t mind real work, but today would not have been the day she’d have chosen for the sting. 

Hermione went to the kitchens first, knocking at the open threshold to announce her presence. Freddy was wearing a sleeper, dangling her legs off a tall stool. Hermione didn't see either of the adult house-elves around. 

"Good evening," the young elf chirruped. 

"Good evening," Hermione returned, and found some bread and cheese in the cupboard. 

"There's some leftover soup," Freddy informed her, hopping off the stool and going to the icebox.

"I'm not too hungry," Hermione said. "Thank you, though." The elves had continued on at the Black Mansion, even after Bella freed them. Hermione supposed it made sense; even Dobby wanted a job, and a home. Who didn't? The memory of the tiny elf made her grimace, and she had the nearly incessant, lingering thought, _ What am I doing? _

It didn't stick around for long. She was tired of questioning herself. And the past was past, wasn’t it. Bellatrix Black was not the same woman now as she was when she flung that dagger at Dobby. Her own house elves were free. Dobby had been a willing martyr to the cause, a cause for which Bellatrix had ultimately made the sacrifice that won the war.

Rather than ask Freddy where Bella was - how would the child know, anyway? - Hermione wandered up the grand staircase to Bella’s bedroom. Sadly, it was empty. She glanced at the overfull and chaotic desk, and then decided to leave well enough alone and trekked back down the stairs to the library. She folded the cheese into the bread and munched on it as she went. 

Bella wasn’t there, either. Hermione went out the back door to the lawn outside, and found the old witch laying there, hands behind her head, staring at the stars where they dimly shone through the evening sky. 

She barely stirred as the door opened and closed, but looked around when Hermione settled beside her. She examined Hermione's face with an innocent hunger that belied her age. 

"You like to be outside," Hermione murmured, rolling her body from the side to her belly, entangling their legs and putting her own face slightly into Bella's chest.

"Yes, well…" Bella murmured, wrapping her other arm around Hermione's shoulders and putting her face against Hermione's head. They were both still for a long moment, settling their bodies together. 

"I wish you'd be happy where you are," Hermione told her, scooting up and placing her hand on Bella's cheek. 

Bella looked away, searching the horizon. 

"How can I make you happy where you are?" Hermione pressed. She settled their hips against each other, feeling her body burn with the proximity. It might be the mark, but by this time it was also natural, what happened to her when they were close. 

Bella dipped her head and kissed Hermione searchingly. Hermione felt her lover's thighs open and then lock around her legs greedily. She felt the same. It was too lucky, Hermione thought. She'd never imagined this. It was much more than she deserved, more than anyone deserved. And yet it was something that she alone was entitled to. She basked in the knowledge. 

"I'm happy wherever you are," Bella said throatily. She pulled Hermione's body closer. The evening was not too cold, yet, for them to disrobe and for their sweat to mingle as the stars grew ever brighter above their heads. 


End file.
